Thirteen Lives — Ron Howard’s sober telling of the 2018 Thai cave rescue

In the classic 1951 noir Ace in the Hole, Kirk Douglas plays a cynical reporter marooned in New Mexico when a local man is trapped by a cave collapse. The story inspires the kind of media feeding frenzy that in 1951 was news itself. By 2018, when 12 young footballers and their coach were caught in the flooded Tham Luang cave in northern Thailand, no one was shocked at the arrival of the press.

But out of sight, a different drama unfolded: a flurry of film deals struck amid the morphing landscape of the 21st-century movie business. Last year came The Rescue, an absorbing documentary from National Geographic; Netflix has an epic, multi-part series scheduled for September. In between comes Thirteen Lives, a well-crafted disaster movie rooted in old Hollywood. A star-spotted cast includes Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen; the director is Ron Howard; the backer studio warhorse MGM.

Yet MGM was sold in March. The movie is now released by buyer Amazon. Old and new — and east and west — meet on screen as well. In a brisk overture, Howard finds the boys in replica Manchester United shirts; a teammate is due to celebrate his birthday with a SpongeBob SquarePants cake. But first they cycle past paddy fields to Tham Luang. Howard doesn’t show the kids terrified inside as the monsoon comes nightmarishly early. Instead, for now, they just vanish, as if abducted by an ancient evil. It isn’t the last time events have the appearance of a folk tale. In efforts to divert rain from the hills above the cave, farmers are told those paddies must be flooded, their crops sacrificed to spare the children.

But Howard needs to keep things moving. His familiar faces await. It isn’t until the fifth day of the crisis that the appeal for help reaches the English Midlands. If the cut from rural Thailand to Coventry disorients, that feeling is only heightened by the casting of the part-time British divers who will lead the rescue. IT consultant John Volanthen is played by the Irish Farrell; retired firefighter Rick Stanton by the American Mortensen. The dissonance lingers, but what the actors do takes skill — quietly radiating star charisma at the same time as tamping things down to play two men whose most demonstrative moments come when squabbling over custard creams.

The same tendency towards the sturdy and authentic informs a film less traditionally Hollywood than the personnel suggest. Howard and veteran scriptwriter William Nicholson tailor the story to modern tastes: underwater scenes are tense enough without orchestral accompaniment, heroic speeches absent. And the movie avoids western-centrism as much as it can, given that Netflix bought the rights to the boys’ life stories. (Thai Navy Seals remain supporting characters, but are treated with respect.) Another choice is to leave out Elon Musk, who loudly inserted himself into the crisis on Twitter. If Thirteen Lives can sometimes seem just a fraction too low-key, you are left grateful for such sound judgment: the wisdom of skilled film-makers in a tight situation.

★★★☆☆

In cinemas from July 29 and on Amazon Prime Video from August 5