Based on the 2019 documentary of the same name, Last Breath (directed by Alex Parkinson, who co-directed the doc with Richard da Costa) tells the remarkable story of a trio of deep-sea divers in the Black Sea, there to do repairs on a pipeline. When a particularly nasty storm on the surface traps the divers, the team must come together to rescue (or at least recover) one of the divers trapped hundreds of feet below the surface.
In this version of the story, Woody Harrelson plays Duncan Allock, the senior-most member of the three-man team; this is his last mission for the company they work for, and he doesn’t want this to be how he’s remembered. Finn Cole (Peaky Blinders) is Chris Lemons, the youngest member, with a fiancee (Bobby Rainsbury) back home; he’s the one stuck on the sea floor with very little oxygen to keep him alive. Simu Liu is Dave Yuasa, something of a legend in the diving community for being an expert diver as well as lacking any warmth whatsoever in his personality.
With large portions of the film seemingly playing out in real time—or close to it—Last Breath is a well-crafted thriller in which the only villain is the clock and the elements. Everyone below and above the surface does their jobs magnificently to make certain Chris isn’t left behind, even if their rescue mission becomes a recovery in the end. The teamwork, resilience, and expertise is all on full display. I especially like the ship’s captain, Andre Jenson (Cliff Curtis) and the dive supervisor (Mark Bonnar) who work together to get the ship working properly and back in position, with the help of the First Officer (MyAnna Buring). With a running time of barely 90 minutes, the movie is relentless in its pacing, and the way the filmmaker uses a countdown clock when tracking Chris’s air, as well as a timer to measure the time he has gone without oxygen, is exhilarating and terrifying.
This is not a story about manly men playing heroes; these are simply people who go the lengths they would want someone else to go for them, alive or dead. This work is some of the most dangerous on earth, and the movie shows at every step how no one on this team was reckless or irresponsible. As one person puts it, the incident was just “bad luck.”
I was unexpectedly moved by Last Breath in a similar way I was by Apollo 13—even though I was pretty sure of the outcome, the characters worked their way into my heart because the performances are so good. The key here is the authenticity, and no one seems more suited to telling this story accurately than the maker of the original documentary. There is tension to spare, the claustrophobia will make your skin crawl, and the dark waters these divers jump into is the stuff of nightmares. Sometimes, less flourish is the way to go, and Last Breath is one of the best examples of that.
The film is now playing theatrically.
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