Review of The 33 (2015) by Alejandro E — 29 Aug 2015

Just watched the 33 miners movie. Antonio banderas. Hollywood version of the chilean miners. It started pretty ropey as they try and get all the background story in but gets better as it goes on. By the end its a good movie and ends really well. As far as true stories / adventure movies go its pretty good. It's kinda funny as well in bits.

Its a true story and therefore the film is under pressure to tell the full story. The story has such a wealth of interesting background information that the film does well to include it all. For the casual viewer the film provided a brilliant story. For the observant viewer is provided a depiction of both the best and worst of all concerned in this great rescue. The balance between fact and drama is a delicate one which I feel they got right.

I didn't feel comfortable with the film being in English, it felt weird and slightly inauthentic. In addition Chileans tend to have a distinctly British version of English in contrast to the rest of Latin America which has a more Americanised English accent. Yet in the film they sound more Mexican / central american than Chilean.

At the end of the film there were tears all around the cinema, the film draws you in to the traumatic reality, the suffering and proximity to failure.

Its easy to forget that this is a true story about 33 men that so nearly failed to survive on so many occasions. The film really underlines that the impossible was achieved. The film is worth watching for far more just a film.