Last year’s multi-award-nominated documentary, The Rescue, chronicled the miraculous rescue mission undertaken by a pair of British divers, Rick Stanton and John Volanthen, who plunged into the depths of the unknown to save a 12-person strong football team and their coach. The well-documented deliverance expedition was news that gripped the world when it occurred in 2018. Due to flash floods, the 12 boys and their coach were left stranded in an inaccessible part of the Tham Luang cave and were left relying on two cave divers who had initially learned their craft as a hobby to save them from their plight. Naturally, the media clamor for a slice of the action was deafening, and the rescue in turn procured the interest of media and production companies, with Amazon the latest film studio to create a flick on the rescue attempt.
With Ron Howard’s dramatization of the Tham Luang cave rescue (aptly titled Thirteen Lives), set for release for general consumption on Amazon Prime Video this Friday (5th August), it would be fitting to explore some of the best movies about or including human rescue...
5 Unbroken
Co-written by the Coen brothers and directed by Angelina Jolie, Unbroken documents the trials and tribulations of US Olympian turned WWII soldier Louis Zamperini, and the hardships he faced in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and at the hands of the tyrannical Corporal Mutsuhiro Watanabe. Through a vast degree of valor and a composed, steadfast approach toward his captor’s torment, Zamperini (Jack O’Connell), clings on for salvation from those in the American air force.
4 Everest
Unsurprisingly, as with any extreme sport, the snowy, perilous alpines of the world’s largest mountain in Everest is thought to have claimed the lives of over 300 people. 2015’s Everest is based on the astonishing Adventure Consultants 1996 expedition, and ascent of the prodigious Himalayan mountain led by Rob Hall and Scott Fischer (Jason Clarke and Jake Gyllenhaal). After inadvertently climbing into an unforeseen snow storm, the weathered climbers and their counterparts are left marooned atop of the mountain.
The courageous Hall endeavors to make it back up the mountain to rescue those attempting the precarious descent with potentially disastrous consequences. Director Baltasar Kormákur and his supremely talented cast expertly reproduce the sheer scale of Everest, and encapsulate the very essence of nature being a “cruel mistress.”
3 Dunkirk
To this day, the evacuation of half a million allied troops from the beaches of Dunkirk remains the largest-scale rescue operation in military history. Director Christopher Nolan collides head-on with this topic and delivers a potent mix of suspenseful music, a 360° angle of proceedings from the land, sea, and air, as well as steel-faced performances from both industry greats and newcomers, proving accomplished acting isn’t just located in spoken form.
Dunkirk is a frenetically immersive experience, the panicked frenzy ensued on the beach housing a whole army, to the rush to bring them back to safer pastures by courageous shipmates is as “reach out and touch it” as one can get cinematically. Through Hoyte Van Hoytema’s cinematography and the distant sound of gunshots, air raid sirens, the grunt of jet engines overhead, and the eerie silence across the Normandy beaches, the anxiety felt by the soldiers permeates through the screen and is shared by the audience alike.
2 Captain Phillips
Tom Hanks puts in a characteristically shipshape performance in Paul Greengrass’ Captain Philips, a screen adaptation of the novel A Captain’s Duty. The film sets sail toward Kenya, however, off the coast of Somalia, the Maersk Alabama is captured by Somali pirates, with Captain Philips forced to bargain with them to spare his crew’s lives as he prepares to go down with his ship. However, as is often the case with these works of non-fiction, it certainly doesn’t give any hint of a ferry-tail ending.
Hanks stars opposite Barkhad Abdi (Abduwali Muse), and the two complement each other flawlessly, with the latter’s daring stare and cunning smile, and his declaration that “I am the captain now," providing a constant air of unpredictability. Hanks puts in a career-defining performance as the shell-shocked hero, whose moral-compass delivers better guidance than that of his ships navigational radar which has led him into murky, pirate-infested waters.
1 Hacksaw Ridge
Andrew Garfield took on the role of Desmond T. Doss in Mel Gibson’s war saga, Hacksaw Ridge. Following the true story of a conscientious objector, Doss was conscripted into the US army, despite him refusing to fire a single bullet. Widely chastised and repudiated by his fellow army corps, the film is a moving depiction of how he rose from ostracization to lionhearted war hero in the Battle of Okinawa, saving close to 100 men. Like many war films, added cheese does obscure the line between fact and fiction, however, Gibson’s neatly constructed illustration of a bloody battle and the pinpoint focus on its tunnel-visioned subject brings the screenplay to life.