The ordeal of 33 men trapped in a Chilean mine in 2010 attracted the world’s media. That story demonstrated the indomitable human spirit in a way this Hollywood film version doesn’t matchAlmost as soon as the 33 men trapped in the San José mine in Chile were rescued,the disputes and recriminations over potential film adaptations of their extraordinary ordeal began to surface too; for low-paid men in a normally ignored industry in a marginalised section of the world, unwittingly caught up in a genuinely astonishing feat of derring-achieve that commandeered the worlds media for weeks, and an unthought-of opportunity had opened up.
The disagreements are still rumbling along in the background,even as the film is unveiled: a modestly budgeted Hollywood production, starring Antonio Banderas and Juliette Binoche, and with the Mexican-born director of Girl in Progress,Patricia Riggen, behind the camera. While the release of The 33 may not have been preceded by a widely seen documentary on the same subject – something that befell The Walk and Steve Jobs, or appears to have marred their commercial chances – the news footage of the ordeal is so familiar that a feature would have to offer up something pretty special to compensate.
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Source: theguardian.com