Movie Review: ‘Last Breath’

Based on a documentary about the harrowing real-life rescue of a deep-sea diver, ‘Last Breath’ is a strangely lackluster feature despite a solid cast.

(L to R) Finn Cole stars as Chris Lemons, Woody Harrelson as Duncan Allcock and Simu Liu as Dave Yuasa 'Last Breath', a Focus Features release. Photo: Mark Cassar / © 2024 Focus Features LLC.

‘Last Breath’ receives 6 out of 10 stars.

Opening in theaters February 28th is ‘Last Breath,’ directed by Alex Parkinson and starring Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole, Cliff Curtis, Mark Bonnar, Myanna Buring, and Bobby Rainsbury.

Initial Thoughts

Woody Harrelson stars as Duncan Allcock in 'Last Breath', a Focus Features release. Photo: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 Focus Features LLC.

‘Last Breath’ is part of a curious phenomenon – which mostly seems to exist on Netflix – in which a documentary about a real-life incident or series of events is followed by a fictional limited series or movie about the same subject (or vice versa). ‘Last Breath,’ out this week from Focus Features, is a narrative feature remake of the 2019 documentary of the same name, with one of the doc’s directors, Alex Parkinson, handling the same duties for the feature (he co-directed the doc with Richard da Costa).

The true story is a harrowing one – in which a deep-sea saturation diver was stranded in hundreds of feet of water with no oxygen for 29 minutes – but Parkinson’s feature is curiously lacking in tension or the kind of character development necessary for an audience to get fully involved in the story. It attempts in part to make up for that with a bombastic, intrusive score from Paul Leonard-Morgan, which does its best to make the viewer think they’re watching hugely dramatic moments, and it’s got two solid leads in Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu, but the movie feels flat and, at just 93 minutes, oddly brief and inconsequential.

Story and Direction

(L to R) Actor Simu Liu and crew members on the set of 'Last Breath', a Focus Features release. Photo: Jon Borg / © 2024 Focus Features LLC.

We’re not here to downplay in any way the experience that deep sea diver Chris Lemons (played here by British ‘Peaky Blinders’ actor Finn Cole) went through in 2012. In the movie, as in real life, he and fellow diver Dave Yuasa (Simu Liu) are carrying out repairs at an underwater pipeline juncture more than 300 feet below the surface of the North Sea.

With team leader Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson) in the diving bell and the two divers in the water, their ship the Bibby Topaz is buffeted by heavy storm winds and dragged off its location as its computerized positioning system fails, causing Lemons’ umbilical tether to snap and leave him with no fresh air (or heliox, a mix of helium and oxygen) to breathe.

With only eight minutes of air left in his backup supply, Lemons – in the dark as his suit’s power has also failed – must find his way to the pipeline and climb to the top of its supporting structure if there is to be any chance that he can be spotted by the ship’s underwater camera, so that Yuasa can return and rescue him.

Meanwhile, the ship’s crew above is trying to repair its positioning system so that it can get back over the precise location. In the end, Lemons loses consciousness after his air runs out and is trapped for some 29 minutes without anything to breathe – leaving his fate uncertain as his friends and crewmates desperately try to save him.

(L to R) Actors Simu Liu, Woody Harrelson and Finn Cole with director Alex Parkinson on the set of their film 'Last Breath', a Focus Features release. Photo: Mark Cassar / © 2024 Focus Features LLC.

Before all this plays out, however, ‘Last Breath’ takes us through the pre-game of the ship’s mission, which includes, most fascinatingly, the deep-sea crew living in a large capsule for several days to get used to the pressurization underwater. But even that, as well as the teammates’ interactions, is presented in surprisingly humdrum fashion, while the characters themselves get only some perfunctory fleshing-out. We know that Chris loves his fiancé Morag (Bobby Rainsbury, glimpsed in the opening and closing of the film), that Duncan is being asked to retire under protest, and that Yuasa is a seemingly cold-hearted son of a bitch who nonetheless loves his kids.

When the main event finally occurs, Parkinson runs into trouble making it as suspenseful as it could be, relying more on that deafening score to push the story along. There are, to be sure, moments of true terror, as when Lemons first loses his connection to the diving bell and the ship and finds himself surrounded by utter darkness, not even knowing that the pipeline is just a few yards behind him. The initial assault of the storm is unsettling as well, and Yuasa’s difficult, climactic climb up the diving bell tether, dragging what could well be Lemons’ corpse under him, makes for a tense few minutes as well.

But the whole thing feels curiously small for a feature film, especially since Lemons’ accident and rescue all essentially take place in under an hour. While that is more than enough to leave his fate deeply uncertain, the relative brevity of the film’s narrative combined with the murky cinematography and paucity of character work make ‘Last Breath’ seem more perfunctory than clearly intended.

Cast and Performances

Simu Liu stars as Dave Yuasa in 'Last Breath', a Focus Features release. Photo: Courtesy of Focus Features / © 2024 Focus Features LLC.

‘Last Breath’ is clearly bolstered by the presence of Harrelson and Liu, both thankfully avoiding attempts at British accents by playing slightly fictionalized versions of their characters. Harrelson can do the role of Allcock in his sleep – the grizzled veteran full of wisdom and war stories – but he’s also mostly passive in the film, as he sits in the diving bell while Lemons and Yuasa are the focus of the action below and the ship’s crew the center of the drama above.

Liu is formidable and steely as Dave Yuasa, probably giving the film’s best performance – while ironically having the least to say. Yet there is something in his presence and silence that radiates both authority and cynicism, along with a slight touch of fatalism that is probably inherent in this kind of dangerous work. The one moment when he lets his guard down at the end – as he silently gazes at a photo of his children – is also a nice moment of minimalism on his part.

Finn Cole is fine but rather bland as Lemons, who is also sidelined for much of the film’s second half. On board the ship we have the always great Cliff Curtis as the captain, along with sturdy character actors Myanna Buring and Mark Bonnar as his bridge officers, but aside from their welcome appearance there’s little insight into their characters.

Final Thoughts

‘Last Breath’ falls squarely in the tradition of movies about a collective human spirit battling adversity, and there’s no question that the efforts of the ship’s crew and Chris Lemons’ diving teammates were courageous and humane without compare. All are resolute in bringing Lemons back whether he’s dead or alive, and refuse to leave him down in the dark depths no matter what his ultimate fate is.

But ‘Last Breath’ doesn’t quite capture the emotion and tension of those events because of its prosaic pacing and handling, and even the most mysterious and intriguing part of the story – what ultimately happens to Lemons – is casually delivered at the end, although to be fair it’s difficult to say whether that aspect of the story can be visualized properly. Even with its terrific cast and intermittently gripping moments, ‘Last Breath’ never quite gives this tale – pardon the pun – room to breathe.

Last Breath

"Make every breath count."

PG-131 hr 33 minFeb 28th, 2025

Showtimes & Tickets

A heart-pounding film that follows seasoned deep-sea divers as they battle the raging elements to rescue their crewmate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s... Read the Plot

What is the plot of ‘Last Breath’?

When a deep-sea diver (Finn Cole) becomes trapped hundreds of feet below the surface during a storm, his two teammates (Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu) and the crew of their ship race against time and the elements to save him before he runs out of oxygen.