Review: LAST BREATH

 by Rob DiCristino

Because documentaries are boring, I guess?

There’s been an interesting trend of remaking documentaries as narrative films in the last twenty years or so. Grey Gardens, Lords of Dogtown, and The Walk come first to mind, each one an understandable — if cynical — effort to translate niche subject matter into something more palatable for mainstream audiences. I suppose the idea is that Dick and Jane Public can’t be trusted to invest in complicated concepts like high-altitude acrobatics, So Cal skateboarding culture, or — *checks notes* — fussy ladies living in a haunted house without also being seduced by the rich charisma of Hollywood’s brightest stars. Actors love making those transformations, too; after all, nothing thrills Oscar voters more than the annual That Famous Guy Made Himself Look Like That Real Guy performance. But I digress. A more favorable interpretation of this phenomenon might be that these remakes provide filmmakers the opportunity to mold more compelling characters out of everyday people, especially if those everyday people don’t quite conform to established movie archetypes.

But Last Breath is a more curious case. The harrowing story of a nautical disaster that left Scottish saturation diver Chris Lemons trapped at the bottom of the North Sea for almost an hour without an oxygen supply was released as a documentary by directors Alex Parkinson and Richard da Costa in 2019 and has now been remade as a narrative theatrical feature — also directed and co-written by Parkinson — starring Finn Cole, Woody Harrelson, and Simu Liu. Cole is Lemons, the wide-eyed rookie whose life with fiancee Morag (Bobby Rainsbury) is just about to begin. Harrelson is the affable old veteran — or “SAT Daddy,” as he and his coffee mug insist — out for one last ride before retirement. Liu is the taciturn, all-business technician who isn’t there to make friends, and it’s his unlikely commitment to saving Lemons after the accident that will keep middle-aged dads teetering on the edge of their Sunday afternoon easy chairs for years to come.

And at the most basic level, Last Breath works. It’s a movie! Parkinson opens with the wide-open beauty of the Scottish Highlands before locking us into the claustrophobic confines of saturation diving — a process by which technicians are acclimatized to deep-ocean work by living in pressurized cabins and breathing a cocktail of specialized gas. Lemons and his comrades are meant to descend from a diving bell to the seafloor, where they’ll repair an oil pipeline while a team led by Craig (Mark Bonnar) oversees things from the ship above. But when a nasty storm pushes the ship off-course and snaps Lemons’ tether, the team must race against time to save him. Parkinson laces moments of genuine terror throughout, from haunting POV shots of the inky black sea floor to a simple onscreen ticker documenting Lemons’ time without oxygen. Last Breath knows what it’s doing, in other words; Parkinson understands the mechanics at play and how to effectively replicate what must have been the most terrifying hour of these diver’s lives.

And had Last Breath not already been made as a documentary that combines a recreation of the rescue with CCTV footage, source audio, and interviews with the team, this new film would have probably collected a few generous B- reviews on its way to whatever screaming carousel it’s destined to rot on for however much longer society persists. But given its relative simplicity and co-writers Parkinson, Mitchell LaFortune, and David Brooks’ failure to inject any compelling character drama in its margins, Last Breath is ultimately an exercise in futility. It may seem strange to single out a Based On a True Story piece like this when the annals of cinema history are full of them, but this is “Why Bother?” cinema at its peak, a rote and flavorless advertisement for a tale told much more effectively on the small screen. Woody Harrelson is always good for a few jokes, of course, and Simu Liu needs something to do while the Marvel Cinematic Universe — of which he is definitely still a beloved and essential part — takes a break, but neither of them needs this.

Again, there’s nothing technically wrong with Last Breath. It does the things a movie should do: Big ships swell in rough seas. Computers beep and boop while men in polo shirts shout “Oh no!” in handheld closeups. A guy climbs a rope while another guy tells him to keep climbing the rope. It closely resembles movies you’ve seen before. But enthusiastic recommendations are going to be few and far between, I imagine, especially when far better tales of survival in extreme circumstances — Apollo 13, Underwater; take your pick, really — are just a click away. More than anything else, in fact, Last Breath is an unfortunate reminder that “_______: The Movie” is not the pop culture gold standard it used to be. As Norma Desmond predicted, the pictures have gotten small. Literally. Most of the people who will see Last Breath will do so at home, rendering this entire thing even more redundant. Won’t people choose the good one? It may sound crazy, but I believe in the discerning taste of the everyday viewer. Actually, that does sound crazy. Maybe I should take that back.

Last Breath is in U.S. theaters now.