Review: Dave Not Coming Back

Experienced scuba divers Don Shirley and Dave Shaw lead a small team to explore South Africa’s Boesmansgat underwater cave in order to locate and recover the body of diver Deon Dreyer, who never resurfaced after going on a team dive there 10 years prior. As the title suggests, it’s an expedition on which Dave would tragically lose his life. The film serves as a tribute to the well-respected Dave.

 

I don’t normally respond well to ‘death by reckless, avoidable misadventure’ stories. I didn’t relate to “Into the Wild” at all for instance (I much preferred “127 Hours”, where the main character was more momentarily cocky than entirely reckless). Thankfully, this 2020 documentary from Jonah Malak is a little bit different. It’s largely a very personal tribute to a well-liked diver who was attempting to help find a fallen comrade when he himself died. I still think underwater cave diving is pure insanity, and the above ground scenery here is so stunning I can’t understand why you’d rather be down in the dark. That’s for horror movies. However, here’s a case where there was a legit purpose for the dive. It’s a search and recovery mission, trying to locate the body of another diver who disappeared a decade earlier and removing his body from the cave. Given the film’s title and that we know fairly early on that one of the diver’s on this search is named Dave…it adds another layer to it, a sense of foreboding and sadness perhaps because the mission will clearly suffer at least one major calamity. That the titular Dave Shaw was an Aussie, also had me invested for national pride reasons, I suppose.

 

As insane as these people are to me in what they do for mostly recreation, there’s something really gripping here about watching the mission unfold. Everyone involved plays a part and if something happens to one of them it affects the rest, putting everyone else in danger. Factors like decompression and the psychological aspects are frankly terrifying, this kind of thing takes a special breed.

 

Although they occasionally sound pretentious about cave diving, Dave Shaw and Don Shirley (and their cohorts) are pretty relatable for the most part and the film helps you to understand them. They’re not dopey thrill-seekers with reckless abandon. They’re pretty normal, average people despite the insanity of cave-diving. Whatever one makes of cave diving, you can’t help but feel for this small community losing one of their own (well, two if you include Dave), not to mention the people above ground waiting for drops of information about the mission. I found it quite extraordinary and gripping stuff.

 

Genuinely good for what it is. Whether what it is appeals to you or not is up to you. I found it more interesting and involving than expects. Part of that is because Dave and Don come across as genuinely good, well-meaning blokes even if I don’t understand the cave-diving thing.

 

Rating: B-