True Chilean Mining Story Goes To Hollywood

Based on the 2010 Chilean mining incident, The 33 chronicles the 69 days it took for 33 miners to be rescued from being trapped thousands of feet underground. Focusing on both the above-ground efforts as well as the struggles of the miners, The 33 seems to follow the standard disaster-flick formula. So while we agree the subject matter itself looks interesting, it appears too cliche-ridden to get us to the theater. Oh, and there’s a good deal of Hollywood whitewashing. The 33 opens in wide release Nov. 13.

‘THE 33′ TRAILER REVIEW BY METRO CREW

JAMES: You’ve got Lou Diamond Phillips, an American actor of Filipino, Scottish and Cherokee descent, doing a fake English-Spanish accent. Then you have the newscasters, the workers and the rescue team all speaking urgently with the same choppy accent. They’re all in Chile. It’s a true story. Instead of speaking to each other in Spanish — which would be more efficient in these dire circumstances — they speak broken English to each other because they know we’re watching. We’re huddled in the dark with them, eating Tuesday dollar hotdogs.

CHRISTINA: I can’t tell if this is a result of Hollywood not giving American audiences enough credit (like, we can read subtitles), or American audiences actually sucking and wanting to see only white people speaking English.

PAIGE: Another true-life story about a big disaster, except we’re all a bit muddled about how authentic we would like to be about it — as James astutely pointed out about the language choices amidst the racially ambiguous casting.

JAIMIE: I would consider watching this in a theatre with someone just to watch (Rodrigo Santoro) the entire time. Sadly, I am not very interested in this movie. I mean, I find the story interesting, but the interpretation here looks meh.

NICOLE: OK, mines scare the crap out of me — even before the 2010 incident. All I can think of is black lung or getting trapped in there and starving to death. I mean, collapsing tunnels is a real thing, right? It haunts my dreams. I don’t think I can watch this only because I would imagine it happening to me and I would just think about the people it actually happened to and my heart would break. I’d bawl in the theater.

CHRISTINA: I want to want to see this movie, but it really just looked like it was trying too hard to pull on our heartstrings. As if the subject matter isn’t emotional enough, they are trying to really layer it on and completely emotionally manipulate us. I mean, that song playing the whole time — that cheesy “say something I’m giving up on you” song? C’mon.

PAIGE: I’m willing to bet there will be a good chunk of time devoted to corporate interests clashing with human decency.

JAMES: I would see this movie if it showed more about the mining industry and culture before the mine collapses. I would even see it at a three-hour runtime. In fact, I would even see it in real time — 69 days — if this movie were interested in the culture and community built up around it. But it looks to me that the filmmakers only see value in the template for crisis. They’ll follow a similar formula to other such movies — people will gather around their television sets and watch with collective disquiet, mission control will argue over topographic cross-sections, and there will be a moment of pause in the end before a risky rescue attempt pays off, bringing those astronauts … I mean … miners, home.