Ticketworthy! - Last Breath

Telling a true story in a film is not an easy task, especially if the story is harrowing and fairly recent. You want to make sure you’re making an entertaining film that’s also respectful and as accurate as possible. Those things don’t always mix. I’d say, however, that Last Breath does an admirable job. It’s a thrilling and tense telling of the 2012 pipeline repair accident that left diver Chris Lemons stranded over 300 feet under the sea for nearly half an hour with only a few minutes of air to breathe.

Well, actually it’s more the story of everyone around Chris trying to rescue him, which is objectively the best possible choice. Chris is played by Finn Cole with an endearing charm that’s hard not to root for, but as you might guess from his situation, he also spends a lot of the movie unconscious at the bottom of the ocean. Most of the action focuses instead on his two diving partners, Duncan (Woody Harrelson) and Dave (Simu Liu), and the crew of the ship that must fight to keep it from drifting too far from Chris or else risk losing him. Every single thing about their rescue attempt is edge-of-your-seat exciting. It’s also emotional, and you can really feel the desperation from the divers and the crew, and the anguish at every setback.

Unfortunately, the movie can’t seem to help itself from trying to cram extra things into the story that are distracting at best. Duncan, for instance, is a grizzled, veteran diver that’s being made to retire. This will be his last dive. He serves as the mentor to Chris and Dave and Harrelson does a wonderful job playing him with a mix of humor and deep sadness. That said, a decent amount of time is spent on his impending retirement and how it’s affecting him, despite the fact that it doesn’t factor into the action, or the larger story being told at all. Last Breath runs at a brisk 93 minutes, and I can’t help but feel we wasted some of them on Duncan’s story. There are a few dangling subplots like that in the film, all of which serve only to take away from the more interesting story the movie is supposed to be about.

Speaking of performances, there’s plenty of praise to go around. The cast is stacked with talent, and everyone does a fantastic job, but special praise needs to go to Liu. He plays Dave with such a stoic determination that you really feel it anytime his mask slips and he shows emotion. A scene of him climbing a cord in the pitch-black ocean could easily have been dull, but Liu sells the desperation so well that it turns into one of the movie’s most memorable scenes.

Some praise also needs to be heaped onto the directing. Alex Parkinson previously directed the 2019 documentary version of this story, and it’s really obvious how much respect and reverence he has for it. A lot of the movie is shot in extreme close-ups or POV shots, which brilliantly puts us right there with these divers and makes the dark, cold depths of the ocean feel claustrophobic and crushing. As far as I can see, this is Parkinson’s only feature-film directing credit. That should change.

I don’t think Last Breath is perfect, and I would have liked to have seen the script be a little more focused and tighter, but I think it hits all the notes it’s supposed to and hits them well. It’s got all the tension that you can ask for out of the story, compelling characters, heartfelt moments, excellent directing, and genuinely compelling performances. Early in the year, it’s one of the better movies I’ve seen. I don’t expect it to win any major awards, but it’s definitely a worthwhile time at the theater.