“ It ’s like going into space , but underwater , ” intensity frogman Chris Lemons ( Finn Cole ) say of his rare career , fixing manmade machinery at depths to which man was not think of to descend . His fiancée takes small comfort in the equivalence , nor should she . Impossibly grim , severely cold , perilous to the oxygen strung-out : InLast Breath , the sea floor really does seem a lot like the vacuum of space . No wonder the mind wanders to crucibles of astronauts during the suspenseful passages of this ripped - from - the - captain’s - log survival thriller .
More specifically , one might cerebrate of the cinematically immortalized troth of theApollo 13crew . Last Breathis construct with the same nuts and bolts as Ron Howard ’s Oscar - winning take on that badly - fatten military expedition . Similarly invested in the how of a mission gone haywire , it ’s another Hollywood adjective about problem solving where one incorrect deliberation could lead the imperiled gasping for atmosphere .
The matter , in this case , is a 2012 mishap in the North Sea , where the real Chris Lemons got stranded doing what some ominous opening text describes as “ one of the most life-threatening chore in the populace . ” Sent into the swallow to repair an fossil oil grapevine , Chris was cut off from his means of communication — along with his literal lifeline of H2O and warm weewee — when his “ umbilical ” to the ship snapped . Last Breathchronicles the endeavor to regain him during a storm , as his backup oxygen and related likeliness of survival dwindles by the minute .
author - director Alex Parkinson has told this true narrative before . dramatise the effect covered in his 2019 docudrama of the same name , Last Breathbasically amounts to a feature - length reenactment , showing us everything the real - sprightliness subjects of the early flick recounted via talking - head interview . James Parkinson even multiply some of their recorded conversation , only this time it ’s far-famed actors trading banter and jargon : Woody Harrelson bring his signature twinkle of cunning humor as the crew ’s veteran diver , while residentMarvel martial artistSimu Liu plays the most no - bunk of Chris ’ aquatically qualified fellow .
The motion-picture show is pretty no - nonsense , too . It ’s been made with the attention to detail — and the allergy to spectacular fictionalization — you ’d ask from a documentarian who feels beholden to the truth of a tale he ’s unpacked at length . Parkinson cross the situation in something like real clip , cut across from the iniquity below to the scuffle of the damage ascendance above . He keeps his focal point locked on lock mechanisms , among other specifics of the equipment that put Lemons in peril . Last Breathwants us to infer what went wrong that day , and the touchstone the crew took to respond , from manually bring up the computer system to attempting to use a drone to contain an unconscious body to the surface .
you’re able to see the comprehensiveness of enquiry that went into the project , as well as Parkinson ’s admirable refusal to gild the lily with activity - film exaggerations . What actually happened is exciting enough , he reason , half - sensibly . His commitment to verisimilitude is both the film ’s greatest plus and its ultimate limit . It ’s possible to admire a just - the - fact - ma’am advance to this material while still pining for alittleHollywood embellishment . At a bare 93 minute , Last Breathcould use more complication . It ’s clean spellbind from moment to minute , but also hem in by its own mother wit of diachronic integrity — by the dogged way Parkinson sticks to the factual outline of a state of affairs that ’s a few escalation unsure of a truly rend recital .
If there are impropriety here , they ’re mostly in the thing of characterization . Beyond a score that swells inspirationally at key crossroads , the phoniest affair aboutLast Breathis the little spark it provide the divers between conniption of pelagic risk , rescue prep , or precariously analog workarounds . Will Harrelson ’s Duncan make peacefulness with his forced retreat from a vocation in the watery cryptic ? Will a topic of lifetime or last put any crack in the stony frontage of professionalism that Liu ’s Dave fall apart like a second helmet ? And while Chris may be married to the sea , it ’s his at hand wedlock to Morag ( Bobby Rainsbury ) that we ’re meant to adhere to like a buoy when all seems lost and the air supply seems consume .
In the documentary film , Parkinson resorted to sleight of hand — some selective withholding of information — to mask how this true write up ends . No such slickness is demand in his 2nd shot atLast Breath , because the film spread completely in the present tense ; it ’s one of a few ways it prove more successful than its nonfiction precursor at putting the hearing right down there in the water with Chris , knuckles whitened , eye on the clock . At the same fourth dimension , the very fact that Hollywood administrator get wind box office potentiality in his ordeal should give you some hint of how it ’s resolved . Audiences will assume a disaster movie of meticulous scientific truth so long as it ends the way of life they hope and the music promises it will .
