Director Alan Parkinson and co-director Richard da Costa tell a fantastic story about a situation where a saturation diver gets trapped underwater to be rescued by his crew members, barely saving his life. That film is the documentary Last Breath. Parkinson has taken this story and turned it into a feature film. While the material does have the potential to make a tremendous narrative feature film, the writing in this adaptation fails to truly capture the essence of what makes this story riveting and powerful. Though this movie has its moments, its lack of character development and its focus on the underwater scenes, without any real tension, feels like an afterthought about what is a genuinely harrowing experience.
Finn Cole stars as Chris Lemons, a saturation diver who reluctantly works at his job but trusts in the integrity of his crew to get him home safely. Working with veteran Duncan (Woody Harrelson) and the intensely serious David (Simu Liu), Chris embarks on another harrowing job where they must dive hundreds of feet below sea level to perform the expected work. However, a fierce storm disrupts their work when Chris’ lifelines are severed, and he finds himself trapped far below his ship.
While this premise sounds terrific and riveting, the filmmakers still found a way to tell this story in some of the most uninteresting ways. For one thing, we get so little character development, making it difficult to root for these people. In addition, the filmmakers do not know how to build up the tension and suspense in powerful ways. Though the underwater scenes look great, I simply could not buy the real stakes here. I get that this is a true story, but the filmmakers are clinging to this fact to pull off their storytelling. It doesn’t completely work.
Though I enjoyed the cast, they did not have great material with which to work. Though I have not seen the documentary on which this film is based, it is probably better as it recounts this story more dynamically. This reenactment doesn’t quite do this type of dangerous work.