Review of The 33 (2015) by Makahla H — 13 Mar 2016

The 33 is a biographic disaster drama film that sure does follow every clichà (C) with some decent performances based on a true story about the 33 miners trapped underground in the 2010 disaster event. The film does set up with showing us the few characters before they set out in their mining site. There is Mario (Antonio Banderas) who is the public face, trying to take leadership and the safety for others, and a few miners as the film briefly shows their personal lives from one having a wife and a mistress which has that comic relief, another who is an alcoholic and has family issues with his sister bailing on him when he needed her the most, than one who is from Bolivia and feels like he is an outsider working on that site, and than there is Luis (Lou Diamond Phillips) who is inspecting their safety work area and files it to their company which they reject his safety concern. Especially, after Lou notices the mirrors they have placed in the mines to inspect the shifting in the mountains and the mirrors have been constantly breaking. The film can be a bit of a heartbreaking struggle seeing these miners being trapped for more than a month, when survival is hanging on the balance when they needed to ration their food supply and trying to keep each other from losing their minds. While Minister Lawrence (Rodrigo Santoro) is trying his hardest to fund for the drilling machines and trying to come up with techniques to drill at the right spot to free the miners.

The visual effects were nothing special, especially in the scene when the mine was collapsing. The set pieces were dark and grim, and really set the mood. The performances was also decent with Antonio Banderas, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Rodrigo Santoro. The script did not express the characterization with these characters besides giving them a brief moment, on who would be missing them and rallying a support group outside by the mines. The film does well portraying the tribute to the hard working miners and their struggle of survival. The 33 is a fair disaster film, it has decent performances in a clichà (C) script that did not give any characterization.