Last Breath – A Shallow Diver Drama

For as long as there have been movies, there have been disaster movies because there is nothing like disasters to galvanize audiences. Tragedy can be a major rallying point, watching characters in current or impending danger and presumably rooting for their survival after everything is set and done. In the end, these kinds of films are about overcoming adversity in many different forms but, more often than not, it doesn’t happen without some form of assistance. However, after so many films featuring characters facing some sort of danger and being somehow saved in so many ways, one can’t help but find the subgenre inherently derivative. Ultimately, in spite of that familiarity factor, these films succeed by creating an emotional connection between its characters and story and audiences. As a shortcut, filmmakers turn to true stories in order to leverage audiences’ pre-established connection with the source material. In the case of Last Breath, a film based on a true story, it does the absolute bare minimum while built on a foundation of exposition and derivative tropes. True story aside, it is predictable to a tee from the get-go, regardless of what its equally derivative suspenseful score may want audiences to believe. Leaving them with no new knowledge of the characters and the story than they did going in, the film is merely 93-minutes of empty calories.

Based on the 2019 documentary of the same name, co-directed by Alex Parkinson, his feature directorial debut tells the story of a trio of deep-sea divers whose mission to repair oil infrastructure turned into a rescue mission as diver Chris Lemons (Cole) found himself stranded at the bottom of the sea with limited oxygen. His fellow divers, Duncan Allock (Harrelson) and Dave Yuasa (Liu), and the rest of the crew above the surface were left fighting against treacherous seas as it became a race against time to save Chris before it was too late. Meanwhile, established through plenty of exposition and tropes, the stakes were that Chris was the least experienced diver of the three and had the most to lose, and that is as far as the character development goes. Beyond Duncan being the savvy veteran who was getting up there in age and David being a legendary diver, their function was merely to deliver the story’s bountiful exposition as they mostly sat on the sidelines. The dynamic between the three divers is literally nonexistent as the story fails to connect its character and story threads in a cohesive way. With no emotional stakes established, the impact of Chris’ eventual rescue was also nonexistent.

Barely scratching the surface in terms of the true story that inspired the film, Last Breath misses much of the nuance of the true story. It may be a bad pun but this film about divers simply lacks depth overall. To that point, the story and characters essentially don’t matter as it is all about the rescue. Blasting a generic suspenseful score over the proceedings, if only to try to distract from its already predictable nature, it does very little to add suspense to what would be a chain of events devoid of suspense. Involving very little on the part of the characters, it offers very little as a whole in the way of excitement as audiences will basically find themselves waiting for the inevitable moment where things will go wrong and what will happen once they do. The film would have been much better served had it used that lead up to ensure that audiences care about the characters and their final outcome. However, the lack of effort in creating that foundation makes caring difficult but emotion is subjective so the opposite is just as likely.

Despite its structural flaws, bringing to life the deep sea diving experience could have been a key factor in setting Last Breath apart from all the other disaster dramas. Be it budgetary or other restraints, this is yet another aspect where it barely scratches the surface. Spending little time in the water, the film does a decent job at conveying the claustrophobic nature of the deep sea as we see the divers in their element but that is quickly put on the back burner in favor of a predictable, not to mention tropey, survival thriller with very little energy to it besides the aforementioned score that tried so hard to fill the void. Seemingly more focused on the destination than the journey, the film fails at both. While a worthy story to tell, Parkinson, primarily known for his documentary work, perhaps was not the best choice to adapt his documentary into a feature film. Similarly, the relative inexperience behind the script is clear as it avoids taking any risks as it dilutes the source material to something considered more palatable, in other words, more of the same.

On the performance side, Harrelson, Liu, and Cole are wasted for lack of a better word. While Harrelson’s Duncan and Liu’s Dave only serve to deliver exposition, the rest of the case are relegated to props to serve into what was a reenactment of Cole’s Chris’ rescue. Let down by lifeless dialog and exposition dumps, the three are handcuffed with such mechanical roles, some would call their performances a lack of effort on their part, but they truly never had a chance to do much with them.

At the end of the day, Last Breath is a shallow diver disaster drama, doing the bare minimum while diluting its worthy true story in tropes and exposition.

still courtesy of Elevation Pictures

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.