The 33

Ever since the disaster film craze back in the 70's about subjects based on fiction or fact, audiences, as well as Hollywood has had a fascination with genre. Whether it be "Airport" based on Arthur Hailey's novel, or "The Poseidon Adventure", "The Hindenburg", "Earthquake", the recent, "San Andreas", even "Everest", we are constantly rooting for all to reach safety. So, when "The 33" came along, the obvious choice was to go and see how these miners made it through that horrendous ordeal.

Based on the real-life event in August 2010, the eyes of the world were eventually turned to Chile, where 33 miners had been buried alive by a catastrophic explosion and collapse of a 100-year-old gold and copper mine being confined in the mine for 69 days.
It was like any other day, and all of a sudden, the mine collapsed encapsulating miners, Mario Sepuveda (Antonio Banderas), Don Lucho (Lou Diamond Phillips), Alex Vega (Mario Casas), Edison Pena (Jacob Vargas), Dario Segovia (Juan Pablo Raba), and others. Only after a huge uproar from the families outside the mine including Maria Segovia (Juliette Binoche), Dario's sister, did the authorities, including the minister of mines, Laurence Golborne (Rodrigo Santoro) actually decide to seriously respond. This is the heroic story of how all pitched in, (inside and outside the mine), which makes this all the more inspirational.

Others to round out the cast are James Brolin as Jeff Hart, Oscar Nunez as Yonni Barrios, Tenoch Huerta as Carlos Mamani, Marco Trevino as Jose Henriquez, Elisabeth De Razzo as Susana Sepulveda, Mario's wife, Bob Gunton as President Pinera and Gabriel Byrne as Andre Sougarret, the leading engineer.

Interestingly, this was directed by someone who usually doesn't direct this particular intense genre, but helmed it with pathos and passion, something missing in certain films today. This director, Patricia Riggen ("Under the Same Moon" '07, "Lemonade Mouth" (TV movie) '11, "Girl in Progress" '12) is certainly a filmmaker to contend with and will undoubtedly receive more work. This story was equally retold by writers Mikko Alanne, Craig Borten and Michael Thomas based on the screen story by Jose Rivera, which is based on the book "Deep Down Dark" by Hector Tobar. Even with a fair number of writers on this production, the storyline flowed amazingly well. Other than a couple of very small areas of choppiness, this script was cohesive and easy to follow. The subject matter made perfect fodder for any seasoned writer, because there was so much drama involved in this story to be able to interweave an interesting storyline in order to capture any audience out there.

If you're a person that really gets into seeing how people get out of an amazing and dangerous situation, as most people do, then this film will make you get up and cheer for these guys. And that is just what we need to give us, the audience, that proverbial shot in the arm.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                                 Rated: PG-13                                 128mins.