Drama, though, allows stuff like character development. In both titles it evokes the possibility, indeed likelihood, of tragedy.Īnyway, in the excellent Apollo 13 he worked hard to create a powerful sense of authenticity, and with one glaring oversight - which I’ll get to - he does the same here.Īt times, there’s a distinct documentary feel to Thirteen Lives, drawing slightly unhelpful comparisons with an actual, rather brilliant documentary on the subject, 2021’s The Rescue, by the team who made the Oscar-winning Free Solo. My guess, incidentally, is that in everyday life he gives the number 13 a swerve when he can.

Does he succeed? Yes and no, but mostly no So the challenge facing director Ron Howard in dramatising the story of the rescue operation, is to make it somewhere near as tense as the vividly remembered real thing. After all, Howard has made an acclaimed near-disaster movie before, namely Apollo 13 (1995). Thirteen Lives is a highly creditable film, but creditable is not quite the same as captivating or compelling.

Does he succeed? Yes and no, but mostly no.

(They had gone in there after football practice, intending to stay for just an hour or two, but then a torrential rainstorm struck.) The desperate plight of 12 boys and their coach, trapped for more than a fortnight in a flooded network of caves in northern Thailand, touched hearts and minds all over the world. It was certainly true of the Cuban Missile Crisis 60 years ago this autumn, but it’s not often that a story generating unbearable tension has the entire planet in its grip.įour summers ago, however, it didn’t seem like hyperbole. That expression ‘the world held its breath’ gets bandied about a little too much.

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