Nine stars. Not ten because it isn't tight enough. Mortensen and Farrell
both knock it out of the park here. They have to balance a sense of physical
competence that borders on arrogance with an underlying dread of their
helplessness to prevent a tragedy. Farrell has to play it more heart on his
sleeve, but Mortensen's rare eruptions tell us what we need to know about
Rick's emotional state. The other brilliant performances are by Teeradon
Supapunpinyo, as Coach, and the woman who plays the mom who confronts the
Governor. Coach is another balancing act character who knows the lives of his
charges are dependent on him not failing them, but who also believes his
failure is what led to the crisis. Ron Howard knows how to stretch the
audience's emotions. He's been working on that for his whole career. The
shots of the cave diving are disturbingly claustrophobic. I was squirming for
a lot of the first hour, and really happy that we got montage after the first
long dive sequence. If Howard had forced himself to tighten things up just a
bit, the film could have really soared. Even so, it is a fine piece of work.
15 August 2022.
15 August 2022.