Watching “Thirteen Lives, Ron Howard’s new docudrama, is a lot like having deja vu all over again — all over again. It’s the third film in four years based on the seemingly impossible rescue of 12 trapped children and their soccer coach from a flooded cave system in Thailand in 2018, and although it’s extremely competent, it fails to add a new perspective to the story or a distinctive approach to its telling.
Hot on the heels of Tom Waller’s 2019 drama “The Cave” and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s award-winning 2021 documentary “The Rescue,” Howard’s film stars Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell as Richard Stanton and John Volanthen, two highly experienced cave divers who traveled to the Tham Luang Nang Non cave after an unexpectedly early start to monsoon season trapped 13 people deep in its recesses, behind incredibly long, narrow, dangerous underwater caverns.
Although the Thai government had begun to pump water out of their system, they also employed their own Navy SEALs in rescue operations. Cave diving is an uncommon skill that only a few experts possess. It fell to Stanton, Volanthen an elite team of experts — including professional anesthetist Dr. Harry Harris, played by Joel Edgerton — to navigate the labyrinthine death trap, locate the missing children, and concoct a death-defying, unprecedented rescue plan.
Howard is one of Hollywood’s most accomplished mainstream dramatists, bringing slick and efficient storytelling prowess to Oscar-friendly, based-on-a-true stories like “A Beautiful Mind,” “Apollo 13” and “Frost/Nixon.”He knows when to pull a heartstring or when to wilt on a sucker like Buckethead to a great metal riff. The narrative of the Tham Luang cave rescue seems tailor-made to Howard’s strengths, coming pre-packaged in a tidy narrative with clear emotional investment, high stakes and (literal) twists and turns.
So it’s odd to find the filmmaker operating so perfunctorily in “Thirteen Lives,”He established these events, while trying to avoid sentimentality. His restraint would be admirable if he hadn’t overdone it.
The film — written by William Nicholson (“Everest”), from a story by Nicholson and Don MacPherson (“The Gunman”) — introduces the children just hours before they’re endangered. They play soccer and joke about SpongeBob. Finally, they all decide that they all should go to a cave, because they all love spelunking. Who can’t identify with spelunking? What other traits could they possibly require? Surely that’ll do for the entire rest of the movie, which basically treats them like a MacGuffin.
“Thirteen Lives” wastes no time trapping those children and their coach, played by James Teeradon Supapunpinyo, and then moving the film’s perspective to their terrified parents, and abandoning them to focus on local governor Narongsak Osatanakorn (Sahajak Boonthanakit), who is apparently being set up by the government to take all the blame if the operation fails.
After putting people in danger, families in pain, and a government ensconced in finger-pointing, “Thirteen Lives”These characters and subplots are almost entirely dropped in favor of two cave divers, both from the U.K. who struggle to get the support and access they need to do the only thing they can. Mortensen brings a grizzled determination to his role, and Farrell adds a soupçon of sentiment because he, too, is a father, but the decision to sideline all the most emotional storylines in favor of grim problem-solving denies Howard some of the most powerful tools in his arsenal.
It doesn’t help that the documentary “The Rescue,”A thorough and thrilling telling of the exact same story, almost in the same way. Both the structures “The Rescue” “Thirteen Hours” — the quick set-up, establishment of conflicts, careful outlining of geography, ramping of stakes — are distractingly similar, and Vasarhelyi and Chin’s version is clearer, more intense and just as breathtakingly photographed. It’s not just an informative documentary; it’s significantly more riveting in all its storytelling choices.
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom’s cinematography (“Call Me By Your Name”) is sharp and moist, and the editing by James D. Wilcox (“Hillbilly Elegy”) is determined and forceful, but it’s not in service of a distinctive version of these events. “Thirteen Lives”This article focuses on the things we know and have seen, instead of shedding light on new aspects or adding depth.
With “Thirteen Lives,”Ron Howard has done a great job telling this Hollywood story. He added a bit of star power, but nothing else. It’s basically what happened, told in a basic way, by talented people with no additional zest or insight, for audiences who normally — perhaps — wouldn’t watch a film without famous actors or the imprimatur of a director like Howard, who once again proves that he can make a very decent movie. Even if it’s not necessarily a great or memorable one.
“Thirteen Lives”After opening in U.S. theaters last week, Amazon Prime Video launches Friday globally