Last Breath (12A)

In September 2012, saturation diver Chris Lemons boards the Bibby Topaz captained by Andre Jenson. He is allocated to the same dive team as retiring veteran Duncan Allcock and lone wolf Dave Yuasa. The ship uses dynamic positioning to remain over a pipeline in need of repair, located 330 feet beneath the roiling surface. A fatal computer error leaves the Bibby Topaz drifting helplessly off course and Lemons' umbilical cords of oxygen and electricity are severed.

LondonNet Film Review

Last Breath (12A) Film Review from LondonNet

Film directors are rarely gifted an opportunity to remake their own work but Alfred Hitchcock masterminded two iterations of The Man Who Knew Too Much, 22 years apart, and Michael Haneke co-ordinated a shot-for-shot English-language remake of his diabolical 1997 home invasion horror, Funny Games. In 2019, Alex Parkinson and Richard da Costa co-directed the edge-of-seat documentary Last Breath about a team of saturation divers – professionals who operate underwater for extended periods in a pressurised chamber. The film combined archive footage, reconstructions, audio recordings and interviews to revisit an ill-fated September 2012 dive to the bed of the North Sea to repair a pipeline…

A nerve-shredding story of heroism provides rich source material for Parkinson’s solo narrative feature debut, distilling events that fateful day into a pulse-quickening adventure. The script, co-written by Parkinson, Mitchell LaFortune and David Brooks, wastes precious few seconds of a watertight 93-minute running time on dry land, quickly establishing key characters to allow us to spend a good hour holding our breaths along with stricken characters. Actors Finn Cole and Simu Liu completed intensive scuba training so cameras can linger close to their divers as they make split-second decisions to resolve a high-stakes predicament.

Saturation diver Chris Lemons (Cole) bids farewell to girlfriend Morag (Bobby Rainsbury) and boards the Bibby Topaz captained by Andre Jenson (Cliff Curtis). He is allocated to the same dive team as retiring veteran Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson) and lone wolf Dave Yuasa (Liu) as the ship travels into the eye of a storm in the North Sea and uses dynamic positioning to remain over a pipeline in need of repair, located 330 feet beneath the roiling surface. Chris and Dave descend hundreds of feet to the sea floor while Duncan remains in a diving bell and monitors umbilical cords supplying oxygen, electricity and communications to his teammates.

A fatal computer error leaves the Bibby Topaz drifting helplessly off course and Lemons’ cords are severed. He has around 10 minutes of oxygen. “I will come back for you,” promises Dave before he is yanked back into the dive bell with Duncan. They wait, with mounting dread, for Captain Jenson, first officer Hanna (MyAnna Buring) and dynamic positioning officer Michel (Josef Altin) to regain control of the ship.

Last Breath is a slickly engineered thriller that loses some of its buoyancy if you have seen the 2019 documentary and know how the story resolves. Cole, Harrelson and Liu are well-matched as desperate comrades at the mercy of Mother Nature’s fury, who accept the risks every time they head out to sea. Underwater sequences, shot in an 11-metre deep dive tank in Malta, are staged with weightless brio. The silence in darkened depths, where few safely venture, is hauntingly beautiful and agonising.

– Sarah Lee