After covering Ron Howard’s excellent Thirteen Lives (2022), a while back, we’ve been super eager to watch the 2021 documentary about the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue.

In the event, 12 boys aged between 11 and 16 were trapped in a large cave network with their 25-year-old football coach.

With the caves flooded With the cave network flooded, an international effort went into saving the boys. Including turning to a bizarre, final resort plan to ferry the team to safety.

Overcoming Some Seriously Ominous Odds in The Rescue

The Rescue was co-directed by husband and wife team Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin. Both of whom are two of the world’s best documentary makers.

Previously, they’d won an Oscar for Free Solo (2019). That jaw-dropping, bloody terrifying one where Alex Honnold climbed a giant rock without any safety gear.

This is similarly high-stakes stuff, but in a more methodical way.

The boys became trapped when a sudden monsoon flooded the whole network, leaving them to scarper into a safe spot and wait for someone to rescue them.

That meant 11 days in solid darkness, under instructions from their coach to meditate to remain calm.

But it’s worth looking at this National Geographic explanation of how bad the situation was for these young lads. One mile into the cave system and flooded out, with no sign of the monsoon stopping.

Thai SEALs were called in to rescue the boys, but the conditions in the cave network were so severe world-leading experts were required.

And so British diving specialists Rick Stanton and John Volanthen were called in to assist with the rescue. Although initially meeting some resistance from the Thai SEALs and local government, they were allowed to traverse the murky depths.

The rescuers weren’t really expecting to find anyone alive, with divers bracing themselves to recover drowned bodies.

However, and amazingly, after 11 days Stanton and Volanthen discovered the 13 survivors. And recorded the moment! Hurray.

After the initial elation of finding the young football team, the obvious and unnerving reality hit home.

How in the hell would they get them out of there?

That’s where The Rescue excels. It chronicles, in fascinating detail, an against-all-the-odds story of survival.

Ron Howard later depicted the events in Thirteen Lives, which is also an excellent film. And a fine complement to The Rescue, as the former places you in the position of the rescuers diving through those murky caves.

So, yeah, eventually they decided on an all-or-nothing plan to anaesthetise the boys and, individually, escort their sleeping bodies through the passageways of the caving system.

Just writing that out that plan sounds positively insane.

If you want to hear this incredible story directly from those involved in the rescue operation… then The Rescue is for you.

An excellent documentary, there’s interesting focus on the British diving team.

Specifically, why on Earth they spend their spare time in dangerous cave networks when they could off in a beer garden (or some such).

Their answers are very telling of their introspective nature. Many reveal a history of bullying from their school days, and a desire to escape the pressures of modern life, so you can understand why they’d find the peace and quiet of diving to be therapeutic.

Even though cave diving is, as you might have noticed, very dangerous.

And if you don’t like footage of people jamming themselves through compact cave networks surrounded by murky water… The Rescue may trigger some claustrophobia issues.

Away from that, it’s a triumph of a documentary.

A life-affirming, inspiring look at how humans from all kinds of cultures, and backgrounds, can work together for a positive outcome.

The British Diving Experts Who Found the Boys

Here are the guys on ITV’s This Morning back in 2018, fresh off their efforts.

Just to be clear, they spent many hours (and several weeks) plunging the hellishly dangerous narrow caving passages of Tham Luang cave.

You really need to watch one of the films to understand just how terrifying this would be for your average person. The natural instinct to panic would kick in almost immediately.

However, as they’re skilled experts they kept it all together and performed with incredible professional. Almost as if it was a walk in the park.

The Production of The Rescue

Kevin Macdonald (of Last King of Scotland fame) was intended to direct The Rescue, but he instead took on the role of executive producer.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin took over directing duties, but had trouble getting the rights to the story.

Eventually, National Geographic were able to get the story of the diver’s side of things. But not the soccer team’s story (Netflix bagged the rights to that).

This meant Chai Vasarhelyi and Chin had to focus on the British divers and their rescue attempts, which is why it doesn’t include any testimonials from the 13 survivors.

For a small independent film, The Rescue did well at the box office. It made some $1.2 million.

It was also nominated for many Best Documentary awards across the world, winning at Toronto International Film Festival, Critics’ Choice Awards, and the National Board of Review.