THE STORY – The true story of seasoned deep-sea divers who battle the raging elements to rescue a crewmate who’s trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
THE CAST – Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole & Cliff Curtis
THE TEAM – Alex Parkinson (Director/Writer), Mitchell LaFortune & David Brooks (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 109 Minutes
“This is the most dangerous job in the world.” Those words start Alex Parkinson’s “Last Breath” with a bit of heft, setting up viewers for a thrilling story that aims to display the unrelenting strength of the human spirit. Parkinson, who directed the original documentary of the same name, has found himself gravitating to this story once again, straying away from his roots as a documentary filmmaker and bringing that sensibility to his first narrative feature film. While it makes sense that Parkinson’s overall familiarity with the story and its inherent cinematic nature would translate well into a narrative feature, even after watching “Last Breath,” it still leaves questions about whether it was necessary to make at all. Sure, that might be a subjective opinion, but “Last Breath” doesn’t truly add anything new to this story’s legacy besides the appeal of people possibly tuning into this as their first exposure to Chris Lemons’s life story. “Last Breath” is still nonetheless an entertaining studio film even if it veers towards becoming a more run-of-the-mill survival thriller that has been made countless times before.
For those unfamiliar, “Last Breath” follows the harrowing true story of Chris Lemons (played by Finn Cole), a saturation diver who was assigned a repair job off the North Sea. Despite his youth, he’s a competent diver, as noted by his veteran colleague Duncan Allcock (played by Woody Harrelson). Together, the pair, alongside superstar diver David Yuasa (played by Simu Liu), are sent hundreds of feet underwater to complete essential repairs until the vessel that submerged them undergoes severe issues with its dynamic positioning system, thrusting them into rough waters. This error ultimately leads to Lemons’s umbilical tether snapping, depriving him of the oxygen needed to survive underwater. What once was a simple repair job has now morphed into a time-sensitive rescue mission that may or may not bode well for everyone involved. The screenplay of “Last Breath,” which was written by Parkinson, David Brooks, and Mitchell LaFortune, creates a solid foundation for the story and gives enough for the ensemble to work with, even if at moments where its attention becomes divided. The runtime is very brief, leaving Parkison and the company to keep the story moving constantly. In comparison, Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives” was far longer as the story went deeper into the intricacies of that situation and the motivations of most of the characters involved. “Last Breath” attempts to give personal stakes to motivate certain characters (mainly the three divers). Still, it’s done in such a surface-level approach that it’s mostly forgotten about when audiences are in the heat of the action.
The ensemble of “Last Breath” is solid, with Cole finally getting to stretch his wings from his work on the massively celebrated series “Peaky Blinders.” He eventually becomes sidelined, more so due to where his character’s arc inevitably takes him, but whenever he’s on-screen, he maintains a good presence. Cole also plays well off of Harrelson and Liu, who attempt to create various dynamics between these characters, which sometimes works. Liu’s performance is serviceable as it’s a performance that doesn’t require much of him as a performer besides the physicality of it all. Harrelson is the one that remains the most noteworthy of the ensemble, even if it’s clear he’s going above the limited material that is allotted to his character. Cliff Curtis, who plays the vessel’s captain, does a great job leading the rest of the cast but is swamped by an almost newsroom-like drama of trying to get the vessel back on track to rescue Lemons.
Where “Last Breath” excels is with Parkinson’s sturdy direction, which mostly succeeds in immersing audiences in this high-stress environment. The depiction of the depths of the North Sea is terrifying, eliciting an emptiness in this endless dark void that would easily conjure a diver’s worst fears. This is also aided by Nick Remy Matthews’s cinematography, which helps create a feeling of claustrophobia that settles in quite well with viewers. For a film that brandishes how dangerous this job is, at least Parkinson goes through the motions of showcasing the endless procedures of saturation divers, which offers a glimpse into the many issues that could arise. Whether it’s the lengthy desaturation process, the checklist approach to getting the divers equipped to breach the water, or the constant communication necessary to ensure each team member is okay. There’s also an intensity that is steadily maintained through Tania Gooding’s editing, especially with how the film manages to go back and forth from the perspective of the divers to the command team on the ship. “Last Breath” is at its best whenever we are with the team underwater, but every time it goes back to the vessel, the film dips into formulaic waters.
“Last Breath” is very much a film that older audiences would naturally gravitate to as it could be something that actually maintains a shelf life on streaming that would keep getting people to visit it. Parkison and his company made an entertaining film, but what’s left at the end is a good time that won’t feel as moving as the experience itself, which he has already documented before.
