The Rescue

An amazing story of perseverance and triumph, it hit me on a level I didn't expect - after all the ugliness we've seen in the world with Covid, it restored my faith in humanity. Just go see it.

The world was captivated in 2018 when a youth soccer team got trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. This Documentary by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin (who won an Oscar for FREE SOLO) follows the rescue mission that was a collaboration of the Thai Naval Seal Team, divers from the U. S. Military, Australia and China (who, for some reason are given particularly short shrift) and other freelance divers from around the world. But, it was a squad of British civilians led by Rick Stanton and John Volanthen who took center stage because of their unique qualifications in such situations.

Vasarhelyi and Chin were somewhat hamstrung in making the Doc for several reasons including the fact that Netflix has locked up the movie rights to the soccer team and their families and couldn't be interviewed (old news footage is used to get some of their side of the story; recreations are also used where no footage is available). The filmmakers made the decision to focus on the rescue personnel - it really should be called "The Rescuers".

Even with these constraints - and the fact that everybody knows how it turns out - THE RESCUE manages to be genuinely suspenseful and moving.

"The Rescue" is about the rescuers and the peculiar mentality of the dedicated cave diver. It also provides an expert, 3D-graphics-enhanced procedural recreation of the whole painstaking, perilous extraction process. The mechanics of the operation boggle the mind, and in presenting them so elegantly. Just amazing that despite all the differences in nationalities, training (Thai Navy Seals) culture and languages, a group of non-professional cave divers succeeded in the rescue of the 12 boys (age 11 to 16) and their football coach. Astonishing story and better than most Christmas movies nowadays. This is an unbelievable story that must been seen! It is better than most of the movies hitting the theatre now.

Don't give up.

A documentary about the event in 2017 about a rescue mission where 13 soccer kids and their coach got stuck inside a cave in Thailand.

I think I heard a little bit about this event back then, but I had almost no memory of it coming in to this documentary. And wow, this was the most emotionally powerful and inspiring time that I had at the theater this year.

The documentary aspect was extremely well done. There were minimal side-tracking, and the story got straight to the rescue and spent the entire time focusing on the divers and intense situation. Quite amazing was also reinvention of the scenes in the cave by the divers that participated in the rescue. Added to that were the real footage from the divers inside the cave. Some of them were heartbreaking to watch.

I was on the edge of my seat for the whole rescue mission. I was glad that I didn't remember anything about the event, because I had no idea if the rescue was a success or not. Many times I had expected the worst outcome, which made me even more worried.

The divers who were interviewed were incredible at retelling the story. They told enough information to get audience understand the direness of the situation as well as their emotions throughout the mission. There were some scenes that talked about the divers and their personal lives, but it was told just enough that I got where they came from and not feeling dragged.

Lastly, the theme of not giving up and unification of the people were beautiful. So many times the divers thought it was impossible, but others encouraged them to take risks and not giving up hope on the kids. The amount of people that came from around the globe to participate in helping the kids were inspiring. It gave you more hope on humanity.

Overall, an incredible documentary portraying an incredible event. 9.5/10.

I HAVE NEVER CLAPPED AT THE END OF A MOVIE BEFORE. ESPECIALLY AT HOME BY MYSELF. BUT HERE I WAS. WITH TEARS STREAMING DOWN MY FACE AND QUIETLY CLAPPING AT THE MIRCLE I JUST WITNESSED.