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The Rescue' Review: 'Free Solo' Directors Navigate Another True-Life Story of Endurance and Courage
VarietyTaken together, boundless courage, physical stamina and emotional resilience form the magnetic core of co-directors E. Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s nonfiction oeuvre. The duo behind Oscar- winning nail-biter “Free Solo” naturally gravitate toward real-life you-have-to-see-it-to-believe-it tales, extracting from them a great deal more than beautifully photographed and entertaining accounts of perseverance and survival. Far greater than mere extreme sports docs, their movies raise philosophical queries about life and the universe, bringing an existential edge to the challenges they capture.
Still, no risk that Chin and Vasarhelyi have depicted thus far has been more significant or more unreservedly worth taking than the one they chart in “The Rescue,” a stunning documentary of bone-deep moral resonance and cinematic mastery that deserves to be experienced on the big screen. The extraordinary story they tell this time takes us to the summer of 2018, when the Wild Boar soccer team — a dozen young boys and their coach — got trapped in Tham Luang, an extensive and labyrinthine cave in Northern Thailand, drawing international concern and compassion their way during the two long weeks they were missing.
On the tragic day itself, the kids were on a leisurely yet poorly timed outing after a practice session, unaware of the approaching monsoon that would eventually block their exit, pushing them deeper into the dark ends of a rapidly flooding cave. Joined by thousands of concerned citizens and multifarious experts, an epic and terrifying battle of constantly changing unknowns had to be won to save them.
Still, no risk that Chin and Vasarhelyi have depicted thus far has been more significant or more unreservedly worth taking than the one they chart in “The Rescue,” a stunning documentary of bone-deep moral resonance and cinematic mastery that deserves to be experienced on the big screen. The extraordinary story they tell this time takes us to the summer of 2018, when the Wild Boar soccer team — a dozen young boys and their coach — got trapped in Tham Luang, an extensive and labyrinthine cave in Northern Thailand, drawing international concern and compassion their way during the two long weeks they were missing.
On the tragic day itself, the kids were on a leisurely yet poorly timed outing after a practice session, unaware of the approaching monsoon that would eventually block their exit, pushing them deeper into the dark ends of a rapidly flooding cave. Joined by thousands of concerned citizens and multifarious experts, an epic and terrifying battle of constantly changing unknowns had to be won to save them.
(Note: Bob Eisenhardt, the Film Editor, is a personal friend)