Thirteen Lives

Ron Howard directs this outstanding humanist epic about the real-life rescue of a Thailand soccer team starring Colin Farrell, Viggo Mortensen and Joel Edgerton.

I knew literally nothing about “Thirteen Lives” going in. A press screening was hastily arranged while I was vacationing in a remote area, so I wasn’t able to do the usual research and went in totally cold. Sometimes it’s the best way to watch movies.

As the story opened in Ban Chung, Thailand, I assumed it was a Thai movie about the 2018 rescue of a boys’ football team (soccer to us Yanks) after they were trapped in a flooded cave during a monsoon. It’s subtitled and all the initial principle characters are natives.

So I was surprised when a couple of pasty Brits show up about a half-hour in, expert cave divers who volunteer to help. It took me a moment to recognize them as Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen. Farrell hides behind wonkish glasses and the mien of an IT nerd, which is exactly what his character, John Volanthen, is. Mortensen has a stubbly pate and surly demeanor playing Richard Stanton, a retired firefighter who often partners with John on international rescues.

Later, Joel Edgerton turns up as Richard Harris, an anesthetist from Australia, brought in to help with a risky plan to save the 13 boys. More on that in a moment.

Finally, I was surprised to see Ron Howard’s name come up in the credits as the director, along with screenwriter William Nicholson (“Gladiator”), with a story credit by Don MacPherson. This is actually a Hollywood production that will play in theaters starting this week and move to Amazon Prime Video on Aug. 5.

The boys of the Wild Boars team, ranging from about age 9 to 13 with a coach who’s slightly older, decided to go exploring the Tham Luang Cave near their home village prior to a team member’s birthday party. They were trapped when a sudden torrent floods the entryway, preventing them from leaving.

The story plays out as a tense procedural as officials respond to the emergency, locals volunteer to help and eventually it becomes an international story with numerous countries sending in expert help. A shantytown of tents and generators springs up at the entrance to the cave, with news media arriving in drives. It soon becomes clear that after more than a week with no contact, the boys’ chances of survival are very dim.

This could have been a rote “white Westerners save third-world brown people” story, but Howard and his cast and crew never push the Thai characters to the side. They’re kept front and center, from the concerned family members of the team (Pattrakorn Tungsupakul chief among them); to the young water expert who leads the effort to divert the rain from entering the cave (Nophand Boonyai); to the former SEAL team member, Saman Kunan (Sukollawat Kanarot), who returns to help out his old comrades.

Sahajak Boonthanakit has a key role as the local governor who was scheduled to be rotated out of the province, but is kept around as a potential fall guy should the rescue go bad. He’s the one who agrees to bring in the British duo, and is a steadying presence as a man out of his depth but trying to do the right thing.

A natural tension is set up between the Thai SEALs and John and Richard, with the former at first refusing to yield to the outsiders — partially out of professional pride, but also a sense of responsibility to “our boys.” There are disagreements about whether to go in right away or wait for the dangerous rains to subside. Eventually, the Englishmen are given the green light to go ahead to scout the way.

Howard underscores the claustrophobic nature of cave diving with the same expert hand he brought to car racing in “Rush.” The men strap themselves with multiple air tanks and protective gear, spending hours squeezing and shimmying through spaces no bigger than a pillow — all while rushing waters impede their progress and create rock falls.

From the bloody scraped knuckles to the disorienting camera work, it’s a master’s class in you-are-there experiential filmmaking.

The boys are discovered alive, setting off a chorus of celebration. Meanwhile, Richard and John — who’d only expected to be recovering bodies — realize the monumental task that now awaits them. Getting non-expert swimmers, and just boys at that, to make their way back through the perilous flooded cave is simply an impossibility.

They end up hatching a scheme, something that’s never been tried before, that pushes all sorts of ethical and safety boundaries. I’ll say no more, but the last 45 minutes or so of the movie is an absolute crescendo of tension.

Mortensen, Farrell, Edgerton acquit themselves as grim men who are experts in a very specific task, members of a tiny club brought together by the direst of circumstances. Paul Gleeson and Tom Bateman play other cave divers brought in to help with the monumental task.

I went into “Thirteen Lives” with zero expectations, and came out enthralled by one of the most gripping films of the year.