Thirteen Lives

Ron Howard directs Dan McPherson and William Nicholson’s dramatisation of the true life story of the rescue of 12 boys and their coach from a Thai cave. The boys and coach (Teeradon Supapunpinyo) head off to a local cave system as part of the birthday celebrations for one of the team. While in the caves unexpected heavy rains start to flood them. When parents become worried about the boys they head to the caves and realise that the flood waters have cut them off. The films tells the story of how, what starts as a local emergency response, becomes a global effort. With an incredible rescue plan, led by British rescue experts Rick Stanton (Vigo Mortensen), John Volanthen (Colin Farrell) and Australian doctor Harry Harris (Joel Edgerton).

The issue with well known stories like this, is how do you keep the audience engaged? Luckily Ron Howard has experience of doing just that and does a fantastic job of bringing this truly remarkable story to the screen.

The rescue itself took 14 days, so Howard has to be very lean within 147 minutes of storytelling. But he uses this to his advantage as he moves from one tense snippet to another gripping you from the very beginning through to the stories incredible climax.

While the script can be a little clunky, the star studded cast are almost invisible as they vanish into these incredibly brave and skilled rescuers. No big performances, just lots of wonderfully balanced ones, letting the calm heroics shine threw.

The cinematography strikingly recreates the horrific conditions that the boys and rescuers had to deal, dragging you through every tense, underwater challenge.

Even though I knew how the story played out, incredibly the film kept me hooked right until the end, just to be sure!

Ron Howard has form bringing incredibly dramatic real life tales to screen and does it again. Capturing every moment of the tension and fear of the boys and families and doing justice to the bravery and ingenuity needed to rescue them. Available on Amazon Prime, take a deep breath and dive in.