Last Breath is a suspenseful yet slight survival/rescue film that makes you want to watch the documentary it is based on to see how much better it is. Woody Harrelson gets top billing despite doing very little while Simu Liu and Mark Bonnar do the heavy lifting in this entertaining but mediocre true-life thriller.
Last Breath follows a group of “saturation divers”—a profession I didn’t know existed—whose job it is to live in compressed canisters for a month at a time so they can go on deep sea expeditions to repair damaged underwater cables and pipelines. When one diver’s umbilical tubing (that provides oxygen, electricity, and communications) gets severed, it’s a race against time to rescue him against all odds.
When the men are underwater, Last Breath is thrilling. Director Alex Parkinson establishes a claustrophobic environment—not hard given the setting—that sucks you in and threatens to swallow you whole. For a good chunk of the movie, Last Breath makes you hold your breath effectively.
But it never quite finds its dramatic footing thanks to a simplistic screenplay, shoddy acting, and a miss on who the main characters should be.
The problems start early, with the movie attempting to establish its emotional center—Chris, the ill-fated diver (Finn Cole) and his fiancé (Bobby Rainsbury), share an awkward goodbye as he is called to sea. Cole is not particularly great in the role and Rainsbury just isn’t up to the task; she appears lost in what most would describe as a pretty basic “wife character.” But is it Rainsbury or the script, which also challenges other more established actors such as Cliff Curtis and Harrelson to make anything of the material? Harrelson is most wasted as he spends much of his screen time trapped with a nothing character while desperately attempting to extract some sense of real emotion (he fails). Most of the stuff that happens on the ship above is pretty cheesy. The crew, including its captain (Curtis), look lost at sea and don’t inject much sense of urgency into the picture; a subplot of a nameless dude having to figure out how to reboot the ship’s failed computer system by cutting and moving around wires, has been done countless times before and to greater effect (see Jurassic Park or any episode of “Star Trek”).
Clunky dialogue and emotionless acting aside, it’s clear that Last Breath gave its oxygen to the wrong characters. It tries to sell Harrelson as the central savior—in the trailers, he’s the one giving emotional speeches about not giving up and bringing his man back alive. But his character is trapped in a tiny tin can for the entire movie, with no recourse to do much at all. His co-star Simu Liu’s character doesn’t need any motivation; he knows what to do and is determined to do it. Unlike most others in the film, Liu is semi-convincing and a treat to watch. The same goes for Scottish actor Mark Bonnar, who plays the up-top commander. He sells the hell out of the fact that he wants to bring Chris back, dead or alive. And while I criticize Curtis’s performance and character as is, had he been properly written he should have been the third lead protagonist (or antagonist) in the effort to rescue the lost diver.
It’s all just ho hum, splish splash.
And yet, in the moment, there are enough natural thrills to keep you engaged. The underwater rescue/body recovery scenes are exciting. There is a moderate level of entertainment value. And what ultimately happens is quite fascinating.
Last Breath tells an amazing true story, but it strains under the weight of 300 feet of seawater and a series of events that don’t quite demand a feature-length production. Maybe it should have remained a documentary. A documentary that I assume is better.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.