Thirteen Lives

This review of the Amazon original film Thirteen Lives does not contain spoilers. An account of real events, Thirteen Lives on Prime Video tells the story.

As it is, Thirteen Lives works as a theatrical release with a script that contains the requisite twists and turns along the way and plenty of human drama. This is a filmmaker at the peak of his powers and the decision to have large sections of the film subtitled whilst the actors speak Thai (unusual for such a mainstream Hollywood movie) is just one example of how confident the veteran director is with this sort of material. Both films share a sensibility (not to mention the same numerical title!) and stories of down-to-earth, clever people, forced to solve a seemingly impossible problem with the highest of stakes.

'Thirteen Lives': Thai cave rescue film offers thrills without frills · Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen play real-life rescuers in Ron Howard's effective ...

“Thirteen Lives” is a solid achievement, technically and dramatically, using a ticktock timeline and periodically superimposing on-screen maps of the miles-long cave system to build tension. Farrell and Mortensen do an admirable job of capturing not just the quirky personalities and eccentricities of Volanthen and Stanton but their nerdy appeal: They’re elite yet amateur heroes who, over a lifetime of practicing a strange niche hobby, have become the best in the world at what they do for fun (which, it should be noted, is something most sane people wouldn’t do for any amount of money). It’s made clear in “The Rescue” that these guys are, like elite mountain climbers, a — how shall I put this? But’s the film’s true genius, if that’s not too strong a word, is in centering the action on Farrell’s and Mortensen’s characters, after the scenario shifts from the ineffectual efforts of the ill-prepared Thai Navy SEALs to divers recommended by Vern Unsworth (Lewis Fitz-Gerald), an expat British cave explorer who lived near the cave.

(AP) -- It may be common etiquette to not spoil the end of a film, but Ron Howard learned years ago on “Apollo 13” that knowing the outcome of a story is ...

The hotly-anticipated Thirteen Lives - based on the heroic cave rescue of a Thai soccer team - is finally here, check out our interview with director Ron Howard ...

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Twenty-seven years ago, Ron Howard's “Apollo 13” saluted men with the right stuff.

“They're packages and we're just the delivery guys,” one rescuer says. Much of the film was shot in Australia, not Thailand. The overall effect is a more inclusive storytelling — no white savior narrative, great — but the cost is a flattening of the narrative. (That's a spoiler if you've been in a literal cave for the past four years.) "Thirteen Lives'' is available Friday on Prime Video. Like his space flick, it will take a lot of on-the-fly can-do to get them out. Twenty-seven years ago, Ron Howard's “Apollo 13” saluted men with the right stuff — quiet courage and grace under pressure.

Howard has made a straightforward chronicle of the events and the people who came together to make a miracle happen in Thirteen Lives.

Thirteen Lives is incomparably skillful filmmaking, and it’s one the best movies of the summer and another genuine classic from a master craftsman who seems to have discovered that 13 is his lucky number. Howard has made a straightforward chronicle of the events and the people who came together to make a miracle happen, packaged as a white-knuckle suspense film. Sahajak Boonthanakit as Narongsa, the Governor of the region, adds gravity and dignity, and Pattrakorn Tungsupakul as Buham, the mother of the youngest boy, brings an emotional strength that is both inspiring and heartrending. The underwater photography and brilliant sound design creates the sensation of being right there in the moment, and the claustrophobic tension inside the cave is palpable. The remarkable, true-life drama Thirteen Lives is as perfect a match of director to material as we’re likely to see for some time Stanton and Volanthen serve as the de facto main characters, but Howard doesn’t let the story become so focused on them that Thirteen Lives becomes another boorish white savior movie.

Thirteen Lives is a fictional representation of the Thai cave rescue operation that took place over a period of 18 excruciating days in July 2018.

Thirteen Lives is almost glacial in its pace, never skimping on the thrills while also being fully attentive to the stakes of the mission. Just like in The Rescue, even Thirteen Lives doesn't do a disservice to its 'heroes' by showing them as anything other than humans riddled with fear or self-doubt. Howard doesn't mine the trauma of the young boys for an adrenaline boost for his leading men, also he seems to realise that by neatly editing the rescue operation and making it seem 'easy' might be doing the biggest disservice to the initiative of the divers. In a world more divided than ever, maybe that's the single biggest lesson for all its viewers. No one knows how to go about the rescue, there's an ego battle between civilians and army personnel, the Governor is constantly being given a dressing down by his superior, a Minister from the area. The term of incumbent M Venkaiah Naidu ends on August 10. Howard pulls off a magic trick, by going in a complete opposite direction for each of the above-mentioned postulates. How much of an improbability it was for the boys to make it out alive, and how much of the mission's success had to do with experts speaking coldly about their line of expertise. Approaching Ron Howard's Thirteen Lives with a similar kind of trepidation, I realised how much of a difference the medium can make to the story unfolding before us. The closest Howard comes to giving us some eye-candy is with the casting of Aussie anaesthetist - Dr Richard Harris, by getting Joel Edgerton to play the part. But like his two contemporaries, even Edgerton is famous for how restrained he can be, especially in a film that appreciates it. And starring the disturbingly good-looking Bradley Cooper and Jake Gyllenhaal?

This particular cave rescue is natural fodder for drama: A group of cave-diving hobbyists from Europe alongside Thai Navy SEALS and hundreds of farmers, ...

Our advice: Fire up the documentary instead. “They’re packages and we’re just the delivery guys,” one rescuer says. Much of the film was shot in Australia, not Thailand. (That’s a spoiler if you’ve been in a literal cave for the past four years.) “Thirteen Lives″ is available Friday on Prime Video. Like his space flick, it will take a lot of on-the-fly can-do to get them out. Twenty-seven years ago, Ron Howard’s “Apollo 13” saluted men with the right stuff — quiet courage and grace under pressure.

Ron Howard directs Amazon Prime Video's down-the-middle telling of the 2018 incident.

Howard, working from a script by William Nicholson ("Gladiator," "Unbroken"), turns in his best effort since 2013's "Rush" by letting the story be the story and not punching it up with any flash, pomp or circumstance. Meanwhile families, authorities and teams of volunteers are gathered outside the cave, as the incident captures the attention of the world over a period of nearly three weeks. (Farrell and Mortensen play their exceptionally talented divers like a couple of average Joes.) Navy SEALs are brought in to try to explore the caves underwater, but there's little visibility or maneuverability inside, as strong currents and sharp corners in the twists and turns add to the peril of the situation. Teams attempt to pump water out from inside, but it's still pouring in from the mountain above. It's June 2018, and monsoon season is still a month off.

Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Viggo Mortensen, Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, Sukollawat Kanarot, Theerapat Sajakul, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Vithaya Pansringarm ...

On which, the recreation of the diving sequences are an effective combination of claustrophobic murk, eerie silences disturbed by the odd exhalation of bubbles and oxygen tanks clanging against the rocks, all punctuated by weirdly tense moments in which an appendage will appear to be stuck in an all too small gap for a second, before being wriggled free. The individual lives of this disparate group of divers, and each of their own idiosyncrasies? In the true story of Thirteen Lives, twelve boys and the coach of a Thai soccer team explore the Tham Luang cave when an unexpected rainstorm traps them in a chamber inside the mountain.

“Thirteen Lives” benefits from strong performances by its two leads, Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell, as two of those divers. However, their work takes a ...

More importantly, their subtle and steady performances help to anchor the film, which ultimately is an ensemble affair that also benefits from Edgerton (“Zero Dark Thirty”) and Tom Bateman (“Death on the Nile,”), as another diver, Chris Jewell. Bateman shines late as Chris goes through a challenging circumstance during the rescue attempt. And the clock is ticking, with oxygen levels in the cave becoming a concern, the threat of more rain another. “Thirteen Lives” begins on June 23, when, after some soccer and before a birthday party for one of the players, the team decides to ride their bikes to Tham Luang in Northern Thailand. After they enter the cave, a downpour begins, causing locals to fear the region’s monsoon season is coming early. The possibility that the operation ultimately will conclude with lifeless bodies being retrieved from Tham Luang becomes what feels like more of an inevitability with each passing hour. Soon, though, they’re on the scene and learning how to best navigate this cave, spending hours swimming hundreds of meters. “Thirteen Lives” benefits from strong performances by its two leads, Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell, as two of those divers.

The harrowing rescue of a Thai youth soccer team is the subject of Ron Howard's latest drama.

All we learn of the boys’ struggle is that their coach (Pattrakorn Tungsupakul), a former Buddhist monk, taught them meditation to conquer their fears. The audience spends an hour of the running time experiencing the primal terror of being underground, underwater, and — in a detail left out of initial news reports — under sedation. It’s a race against water, which thunders down into sinkholes that flood the cave and kick up dangerous currents. This is a pragmatic recounting of a nigh-impossible mission: first, to find the trapped boys, and harder still, to swim them out. (The operation succeeds, with two casualties.) He’s gripped by the mechanics of how the divers pulled it off, a feat that needs very little goosing from the composer Benjamin Wallfisch’s rattling cymbals to play like a thriller. Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives,” a feat of endurance about the 18-day effort to rescue a youth soccer team from Thailand’s Tham Luang cave in 2018, gazes in awe at two unassuming men: Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, whom the actors Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell play with their magnetism dialed down until these charismatic movie stars resemble spit wads left to air-dry.

Deadline has an exclusive track from the score for MGM, UAR and Amazon's 'Thirteen Lives', composed by Benjamin Wallfisch.

I’m thrilled for audiences to enjoy the experience of listening to it.” Ben delivers on all those elements, and his score for the film is remarkable. My vision for the score was for it to set a tone that was chilling, while also subtle and distinctive. The score is at times highly experimental, manipulating instruments to make them sound as if they are being warped under water, and with the percussion of the ticking clock being made from samples of the scraping, tapping, and air escape from oxygen canisters, alongside many other unusual score concepts. The feature from MGM, Bron Creative, Imagine Entertainment, Storyteller and Magnolia Mae recounts the incredible true story of the tremendous global effort to rescue a Thai soccer team who become trapped in the Tham Luang cave network during an unexpected rainstorm in 2018. It was important to us that the music in Thirteen Lives helped us to further embody the Thai culture and create that key element of suspense.

Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell star in a real-life drama about the 2018 event.

PG-13 (strong language, unsettling images). In English and Thai, with subtitles. Most of those lump-in-the-throat moments take place in the caves. He also shows the mounting anxiety of the players’ families and the media scrum outside the cave mouth. We see the trapped boys and their coach only when divers are in the cavern. Only divers could get to them, and those divers had to travel 2½ miles from the cave mouth to reach them. This is one area where the documentary aspect gives Howard a pass. Even fewer such events end happily, as the rescue did. Few events capture the extended attention of pretty much the entire world. Low-key filmmaking can still be inspired filmmaking, but inspired filmmaking “Thirteen Lives” is not. “Thirteen Lives,” which starts streaming Friday on Amazon Prime, isn’t as good as the earlier movie. One of the best is “Apollo 13″ (1995), about the touch-and-go return of the three astronauts on that failed moon mission. His latest, “Thirteen Lives,” about the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue, in Thailand, shares more than a titular number with the earlier film.

Ron Howard learned years ago that knowing the outcome of a story is different from knowing the story...

Going in, the plan was for the actors to do some of the cave diving and to supplement it with stunt double work. "He was the one that was insisting that we should do it. It was difficult," said Tom Bateman, who plays diver Chris Jewell. "But we're just holding the candle up to some incredible people. I suppose I'm describing a panic attack of sorts, albeit a light one." And it was scary at times, especially for Farrell who said he is not the strongest swimmer. "You may know on a headline basis that things worked out well, but you don't know what kind of personal struggles may be in store for the key characters," Howard said. It's worth noting that Craig Challen, who was Harris' diving partner, for which they jointly won the 2019 Australian of the Year, does not feature in the film. Even Howard said it ranks in the "upper quadrant" of his most challenging films. He enlisted a team of Thai artists and producers to help, including the great cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Call Me By Your Name). And I felt a deeper responsibility to getting this right on behalf of those involved than probably any other movie that I've made based on real events." And though the 2018 rescue of the Thai boys' soccer team and their coach is considerably fresher in our collective memories, Howard saw in it a similar opportunity. As everyone would quickly come to realise, there were quite a few people worthy of the camera's focus.

Ron Howard's "Thirteen Lives," Tom Waller's "Cave Rescue," and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin's documentary "The Rescue" are all available to ...

All I know is that it diminishes movies and the efforts of those involved in making them whenever a big-screen event like this gets downsized to a stream of content. Farrell is one of our most wonderfully open and transparent of actors, so that the more Volanther tries to tamp down his nervousness and underplay the gravity of the situation, the more we see it pouring off of him in waves. At times “Thirteen Lives” feels like an underwater “Apollo 13,” the project playing to the director’s strengths in teamwork, camaraderie and unfussy — if unremarkable — Hollywood storytelling. Swimming in its wake, via video on demand, comes “Cave Rescue,” a sneaky re-branding of writer-director Tom Waller’s 2019 film “The Cave,” which stars rescue diver Jim Warny as himself, as well as some of the story’s other real-life players re-enacting events in and around the Thai locations where they actually occurred. Arriving on Amazon Prime Video this Friday is Ron Howard’s “ Thirteen Lives,” a brawny, big-budget spectacle starring Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farrell as Stanton and Volanthen, filmed on meticulously recreated soundstages and in massive water tanks with the stars doing their own stunts. Thailand’s monsoon season arrived a month ahead of schedule, and unless you were living underground yourself in the summer of 2018, you’re sure to have heard all about the 12 young soccer players and their coach who spent 18 days trapped in the flooded caverns of the Tham Luang cave system.

Thirteen Lives director Ron Howard and producer Raymond Phathanavirangoon reveal how Viggo Mortensen was instrumental on filming the water scenes.

In addition, they revealed the first thing you should watch if you’ve never seen their work. The film also stars Colin Farrell, Joel Edgerton, Tom Bateman, Paul Gleeson, Pattrakorn Tungsupakul, Tui Thiraphat Sajakul, James Teeradon Supapunpinyo, Sahajak Boonthanakit, and Weir Sukollawat Kanaros. Thirteen Lives was written by William Nicholson As word spread around the planet, more than 10,000 volunteers joined forces to help save the twelve boys and their coach, including a team of the world’s most skilled and experienced divers.

Ron Howard learned years ago that knowing the outcome of a story is different from knowing the story...

Going in, the plan was for the actors to do some of the cave diving and to supplement it with stunt double work. "He was the one that was insisting that we should do it. It was difficult," said Tom Bateman, who plays diver Chris Jewell. "But we're just holding the candle up to some incredible people. I suppose I'm describing a panic attack of sorts, albeit a light one." And it was scary at times, especially for Farrell who said he is not the strongest swimmer. "You may know on a headline basis that things worked out well, but you don't know what kind of personal struggles may be in store for the key characters," Howard said. It's worth noting that Craig Challen, who was Harris' diving partner, for which they jointly won the 2019 Australian of the Year, does not feature in the film. Even Howard said it ranks in the "upper quadrant" of his most challenging films. He enlisted a team of Thai artists and producers to help, including the great cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom (Call Me By Your Name). And I felt a deeper responsibility to getting this right on behalf of those involved than probably any other movie that I've made based on real events." And though the 2018 rescue of the Thai boys' soccer team and their coach is considerably fresher in our collective memories, Howard saw in it a similar opportunity. As everyone would quickly come to realise, there were quite a few people worthy of the camera's focus.

Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen star in this Ron Howard movie that dramatizes the extensive operation to retrieve a Thai soccer team and a coach from deep ...

For total novices such as the soccer players to attempt the exit dive would have been suicidal. You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. On June 23, 2018, 12 boys and a coach from a soccer team in northern Thailand entered the Tham Luang cave network to have some fun exploring after practice, as they had done on occasion before.