The Rescue. (12A.)
Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.
Featuring Rick Stanton, John Volanthen, Josh Morris, Richard Harris. 114 mins.
Everybody knows the amazing story of the rescue of the teen Thai football team that got stuck in some caves when the monsoon rains came early. This National Geographic documentary reveals that you probably don't know half of it. The rescue was a giant multinational operation involving thousands of people working together but at its heart were a few oddball, social awkward Brits with a passion who cave diving, a hobby that would see them spending their free time in cramped, cold, deadly spaces to get away from humanity.
The film is a bit cluttered and disorganised but the story, and the characters, are so remarkable and compelling it doesn't matter. The closing credits are accompanied by an insufferable piece of uplifting bombast from Daniel Pemberton called "Believe" which is a terrible betrayal of the film and inaccurate: none of them believed that the plan to anaesthetise the kids for the two-hour-plus dive would work. But they did it anyway. Not because they believed they were so special they could beat the odds but they had a duty to at least try. It's almost unbearably moving.
Directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin.
Featuring Rick Stanton, John Volanthen, Josh Morris, Richard Harris. 114 mins.
Everybody knows the amazing story of the rescue of the teen Thai football team that got stuck in some caves when the monsoon rains came early. This National Geographic documentary reveals that you probably don't know half of it. The rescue was a giant multinational operation involving thousands of people working together but at its heart were a few oddball, social awkward Brits with a passion who cave diving, a hobby that would see them spending their free time in cramped, cold, deadly spaces to get away from humanity.
The film is a bit cluttered and disorganised but the story, and the characters, are so remarkable and compelling it doesn't matter. The closing credits are accompanied by an insufferable piece of uplifting bombast from Daniel Pemberton called "Believe" which is a terrible betrayal of the film and inaccurate: none of them believed that the plan to anaesthetise the kids for the two-hour-plus dive would work. But they did it anyway. Not because they believed they were so special they could beat the odds but they had a duty to at least try. It's almost unbearably moving.
