A true story that follows seasoned deep-sea divers as they battle the raging elements to rescue their crew mate trapped hundreds of feet below the ocean’s surface.
Based on the remarkable true story of a deep-sea diver who survived underwater for nearly 30 minutes without oxygen, ‘Last Breath’ is directed by Alex Parkinson, who has adapted this feature film from his own documentary from 2019 (available on Netflix, if you’re interested). It follows a team of saturation divers as they go out on one of their rotations to maintain undersea gas pipelines in the North Sea, when disaster strikes as one of the divers is left behind when an issue with the ship’s positioning system causes the ship to drift away from the dive site. The movie depicts the events leading up to this event, and the frantic race against the clock to save the diver before it’s too late.
Chris Lemons (Finn Cole) is the diver left behind, a relative rookie who is working alongside his more experienced colleagues Duncan (Woody Harrelson) and Dave (Simu Liu). After some initial positioning that introduces us to his wife and his motivations, we’re thrust straight into the action, and the filmmakers skilfully show the level of detail and precision that goes into maintaining these pipelines. The action switches between following the divers underwater, Duncan as their support just above, and the crew in the bridge trying to get the ship back under control and back to the location where Chris was left behind. This is a naturally tense story and it is told well, with solid performances and dramatic action that had me gripped from start to finish, with Woody Harrelson particularly watchable as the grizzled veteran of the team.
‘Last Breath’ is one of those movies that has such a compelling story to tell that it’s difficult to separate whether it is good solely because of the power of its story, or good more generally, but to a degree it’s not really relevant as I enjoyed it a lot. I haven’t seen the documentary so I can’t compare, but I thought this was a very engaging movie that successfully brings this remarkable event to life.
Rating: 4/5
Directed By: Alex Parkinson
Starring: Woody Harrelson, Finn Cole, Simu Liu, Cliff Curtis, Mark Bonnar, MyAnna Buring, Bobby Rainsbury and Josef Altin
'I have a purpose. If you think that it's some kind of blessing it's not. It means I have an obligation to see a very specific thing through.' Marty Supreme (2025) 