Three stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.13.15
The 2010 Copiapó mining accident,
which trapped 33 men 2,300 feet underground after a catastrophic collapse within the
121-year-old copper-gold mine, is the stuff of legend: a tribute to heroism and
indomitable human spirit, and a reminder that we are, indeed, capable of
selflessly pulling together at times of extreme crisis.
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| As all of his fellow workers watch closely, Mario (Antonio Banderas, center) carefully measures equal portions of their meager food supplies into 33 cups: the once-daily meal that must sustain them all for as long as possible, while — they hope — rescue operations proceed above ground. |
It’s an incredible story, both in
terms of what the men endured throughout their 69 days of captivity, and
because of what took place on the surface, during what blossomed into an
unprecedented world-wide effort to save them.
Sadly, director Patricia Riggen
and her four (!) screenwriters fail to capture much of that drama in their
oddly uninvolving film. Although their adaptation is based on Deep Down Dark — the best-selling account of the ordeal by Héctor Tobar, the only journalist
granted access to the men and their families — this film is oddly shallow.
Despite a 127-minute running
time, and some strong actors, we learn very little about most of these people;
similarly, key details involving the above-ground rescue efforts are glossed
over or omitted entirely.
Mostly, though, the film’s often
larkish tone is simply wrong. Granted, tension can be maximized by occasional
dollops of levity, but that’s a delicate balance, and Riggen makes hash of that
recipe. Matters aren’t helped by an overly cheerful score from the late James
Horner: a series of frivolous melodies that sound like the sort of hackneyed
stuff that accompanied “south of the border sequences” in 1960s TV shows.
As the final score Horner
completed before his untimely death in June, it’s an unfortunate postscript to
an otherwise exemplary cinema legacy: This music too often trivializes these
events.
We meet some of the primary
characters during a typically jovial gathering, most of the miners and their
families having bonded through their shared knowledge of this dangerous work.
Mario Sepúlveda (Antonio Banderas) is the respected family man, with a doting
wife and teenage daughter; Álex Vega (Mario Casas), a skilled young mechanic,
chooses to work the mine because the pay is better, and thus offers greater
promise to the life he wishes to build with his pregnant wife, Jessica (Cote de
Pablo).
Luis “Don Lucho” Urzua (Lou
Diamond Phillips), the shift supervisor, has long waged bitter arguments with
mining company managers who ignore mounting evidence of the mine’s growing
instability. Edison Peña (Jacob Vargas) is the token goofball and wannabe Elvis
impersonator; Yonni Barrios (Oscar Nuñez) blatantly juggles a wife (Adrianna
Barazza) and mistress (Elizabeth de Rasso) who live within shouting distance of
each other.
