Review of The 33 (2015) by Ahnehnois — 27 Nov 2015

The story is fascinating. The film is inherently problematic. For one thing, as is noted at the end, the real miners who were trapped underground made a pact not to discuss parts of their experience with the rest of the world, which is reasonable but also means that anyone telling the story is forced to make up a lot of what happened. And frankly, they've Hollywood-ized a lot of plot elements that they didn't have to, which cheapens the reality of the historical events. Eyes will roll.

For another, as the film notes at the beginning, people die in mines all the time. The fact that one group of miners was saved under extraordinary circumstances (and at extraordinary expense) is great news for them and their families, but should not blind us to the overall picture regarding the safety of mining practices and the failures that created the disaster in the first place.

Also, it's silly that the film is in English. We could have handled subtitles.

As it stands, this is a mildly entertaining movie at times; the surface elements are often more interesting than what happens underground. It should serve only as an afternoon's distraction or a primer to learning about the real story.