“Last Breath” is a suspense-filled thriller about a particular saturation diver in the North Sea who becomes detached from his crew and their attempt to rescue him. Based on a true story about events in 2012, the film does a great job re-creating the fears and tension of the rescue team. Sets are top-notch as are visual effects. A great cast seals the deal.

The movie begins with a prologue in which the viewer is told that there are 20,000 miles of pipeline on the ocean floor. These periodically need to be checked. This is done by saturation divers who can go down to 1000 feet to do their job.

Chris Lemons (Finn Cole) lives in Scotland with his fiancée Morag (Bobby Rainsbury). She is planning their wedding when he gets a call inviting to work on a project. Chris is a saturation diver.

He travels to the ship Tharos in Aberdeen. There we meet the other two people who will be in the decompression chamber with him. Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson) is an older diver who has been told that he will soon need to retire. He goes by the name “Sat Daddy” and does not feel that he is ready to be put out to pasture.

Dave Yuasa (Simu Liu) is called “Vulcan” behind his back by his associates. He is terse and all business. He and Duncan have more experience than Chris, who has proven himself though over time.

They, along with two other three-person crews, each enter their specific decompression chamber. A helium-oxygen gas mixture is piped in to the space. When sufficient time has elapsed for their bodies to adapt, the crew will enter a diving bell, which is then lowered to a point where two divers can descend via cable to the ocean floor.

Dave and Chris are the two divers who go to a mechanical station and insert a power cord into an outlet to activate the lighting system. Then the two inspect the station for problems under the oral direction of Duncan in the bell.

Up on the surface, a storm is raging on the North Sea. There are significant swells which the ship must withstand. The crew on the ship control many elements via a computer system. Then the computer abruptly signs off.

Unable to control the ship, it starts to drift. As it does, the attached diving bell also follows. The cables connecting the ocean-bottom divers start to travel with the bell.

Duncan warns Chris and Dave to hurriedly evacuate and get to the top of the manifold. Chris’s cable catches and he is unable to move. Dave tells Chris to activate his back-up oxygen. Chris states that they will come back for him.

Dave is able to make it up to the bell. Chris is knocked off the manifold and must try to find his way back in the relative darkness since Dave had told him to stay there so that he could be found.

A countdown clock appears on the screen telling viewers how much time the backup oxygen will last. Meanwhile, the crew on the ship desperately tries to find ways to revive the computer system and control the ship’s motions.

Then Chris runs out of oxygen completely. Can he be saved?

Not only is this based on a true story, but there is a Netflix documentary about it that was made in 2019. One of the co-directors, Alex Parkinson, of this previous picture is the director of the feature film.

At the end of this movie, there are video clips of the real-life divers. So this ties the two films together in a way. I thought that showing these clips was a great way to end the story.

Of course if you already know about the events shown, then you know how the picture ends. But I choose not to mention the outcome just in case someone wants to go into the theater as a tabula rasa.

The verisimilitude of the sets and the diving outfits seems very authentic. The production notes state how they went to great effort to achieve this. The same truthfulness holds with the practices depicted.

With underwater photography, having a cinematographer who can deal with light and darkness is critical. On the one hand, you want a realistic look. But on the other, you have to be able to see what is going on so it cannot be too dark. Nick Remy Matthews does a good job of balancing the photography so that you can watch this on a smaller screen.

The scriptwriters do a remarkable job in fleshing out the characters with very little dialogue. For example, there is one scene where Dave tells Chris in the decompression chamber to focus on the job, not on his picture of Morag. Duncan’s devil-may-care attitude comes across as well as his caring and competency. The few scenes with Morag and Chris show the great chemistry they have as actors.

Another well-done aspect of the screenplay is the way that tension is created. The initial tension of just descending to the bottom of the ocean ramps up as the ship goes out of control. The countdown clock, a genius insertion, further makes you wonder if Chris will survive. The clips inside the decompression chamber and the diving bell induce a claustrophobic feeling. Even the divers in their gangly suits made me feel claustrophobic.

Visual effects are top-notch. The ship being tossed by the swells of the North Sea is an impressive sight. The scene where a drone tries to rescue Chris are well-staged and well-lit. The sequences with the divers’ descent to and being on the ocean floor are very realistic.

The three leads, Harrelson, Liu and Cole, all give compelling performances. I am not surprised about Harrelson with his superlative body of work. But Liu and Cole hold their own and give very human portrayals.

This is a film that you could take most of the family to see. Not very young children, as it may be too scary.

A worthwhile addition to the rescue-thriller genre, I give “Last Breath” 4 out of 5 stars.

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 surface. Based on a true story, LAST BREATH is an electrifying story about teamwork, resilience, and a race against time to do the impossible.

Cast: Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole and Cliff Curtis
Directed By: Alex Parkinson
Written By: Mitchell LaFortune and Alex Parkinson & David Brooks