Last Breath Review: A Deep-Sea Disaster Movie That Won’t Leave You Breathless

by

How does one create a riveting disaster film from an incident that was resolved within approximately 30 minutes? Director Alex Parkinson, reimagining his own successful Netflix documentary from 2019, provides gripping suspense typical of the genre, but fails to fully explain why he felt compelled to revisit this underwater nightmare in a traditional cinematic format with a coherent big-screen storyline.

The film “Last Breath” is often challenging due to its inconsistent blend of realistic footage, similar to that found in earlier documentaries, and grandiose staged scenes. This combination leaves viewers feeling frustrated because the director’s close connection to real-life subjects prevents him from adding excessive Hollywood flair, yet he seems hesitant to fully honor the story’s reality. It raises questions as to why, if he isn’t going to embrace the over-the-top elements typical of disaster movies, he would choose to retell the story at all.

Intense — but never sustains that tension

Finn Cole, previously seen on “Peaky Blinders,” portrays Chris Lemons, who ventures back into the treacherous North Sea for work in 2012. His job, as indicated by the prologue, is one of the most perilous ever encountered: engineering beneath the North Sea, around a hundred meters deep. Summoned to mend an energy pipeline before a frigid winter spell, Chris teams up with his amiable, nearly retiring coworker Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson), and the taciturn David Yuasa (Simu Liu), who prefers using their shared vessel for workouts rather than camaraderie. Misfortune befalls them when Chris and David set out to initiate repairs as a tempest rages at the surface, causing their vessel to drift off course, and their lifelines being violently tugged away from their work site. Chris’s line gets snagged and appears ready to snap, forcing David to return to Duncan before they can launch a rescue operation — although with only five minutes of oxygen remaining in his suit, it seems Chris is left for dead, even with David’s most effective survival advice.

After that intense scene unfolds, I can feel my heart racing just like it was happening in real life. Alex Parkinson pushes the boundaries of his documentary here, dramatizing events that weren’t initially recorded on his bodycam – or at least, not recoverable from one. With a clock ticking down to zero, he’s up against the harshest odds imaginable.

Just like in any gripping survival thriller, my protagonist refuses to accept his impending doom, even though circumstances have made it seem all but inevitable. His goal is clear and simple – to reach the top of a structure where help can easily find him. Navigating the ocean’s depths to get there is no easy feat, and the film doesn’t need any extra action movie challenges to emphasize that – the currents I’m swimming against are more than enough to make any additional deep-sea adversaries redundant.

The film doesn’t compromise its realistic intentions, yet manages to create an intensely cinematic portrayal of a seemingly impossible struggle. This might be due to the fact that cinematographer Nick Remy Matthews also directed the second unit, resulting in a standout action sequence characterized by striking visual effects – such as the vivid contrast between the deep red flare and the pitch-black ocean depths. The underwater scenes are bound to unsettle those with sensitive dispositions, but it’s this race-against-time scenario that adds an extra layer of tension. It seems tailor-made for the big screen, while the rest of the movie, though reminiscent of a documentary, lacks the visual impact it could have had. Despite featuring A-list actors, the cinematography on the vessel and at the surface is quite ordinary, perhaps intentionally to mimic the monotonous, administrative atmosphere of the ship’s CCTV cameras. However, given that the story has already been effectively told using that equipment, the director could have made more daring, unique visual choices.

A too-brief disaster epic

Regarding comparison, the movie “Last Breath” falls short when measured against two other recent aquatic disaster films inspired by true events: Peter Berg’s BP oil spill drama “Deepwater Horizon,” and Ron Howard’s “Thirteen Lives,” which recounts the rescue mission for the Thai soccer team trapped in a cave. Both these movies excel at blending the grim realities of their individual incidents with the necessary suspense expected from this genre. However, it is Ron Howard’s 2022 film that more convincingly illustrates the model Alex Parkinson should have aimed for, despite being released directly on Amazon Prime Video (despite whispers it received MGM’s highest test screening scores ever).

The movie incorporates raw, documentary-style cinematography even with its high-profile actors dealing with drama within their office settings. However, when the action shifts underground, it intensifies the claustrophobic atmosphere to a level that would have left viewers breathless if shown on the big screen. Notably, Howard benefited from having an exceptional cinematographer (often collaborating with Luca Guadagnino, Sayombhu Mukdeeprom) who skillfully depicted those harrowing real-life events. Yet, their methodology could have been adapted for a smaller scale without compromising the essence of the storytelling.

In a nutshell, “Last Breath” is one of the briefest disaster movies I’ve seen, lasting just 94 minutes. This brevity could hint that the Chris Lemmons story didn’t have enough depth to sustain a dramatic narrative within this genre. The film does contain some nail-bitingly intense scenes, but because the real-life incident was quickly resolved, it doesn’t keep up that high level of tension for long before the rescue mission is completed. Interestingly, the accompanying documentary offers a more effective means of portraying the terrifying nature of this story and how the protagonist miraculously survived against all odds, leaving scientists puzzled. As a drama, you might find yourself letting out a sigh of relief prematurely after the seemingly insurmountable challenges are established.

“Last Breath” premieres in theaters on February 28.

Read More

2025-02-27 04:30