#REVIEW: “LAST BREATH”

Review by Nicholas Porteous for Mr. Will Wong

During a routine mission at the bottom of the ocean, one diver is left to fend for himself with only a damaged suit, a couple of flares and ten minutes of backup oxygen. His umbilical cord has been severed, and his only hope of rescue is busy getting kicked around like a tin can by a violent storm, topside. Does this sound familiar to you? That’s probably because Last Breath is a reenactment of the 2019 Documentary of the same name. Both films were directed by Alex Parkinson. This is his narrative feature debut.

I hadn’t seen the Documentary since its release, but I remembered the story being pretty damn gripping, and the Documentary making excellent use of its subjects and real-life footage. The entire event–more or less–was filmed by underwater cameras, and many bits were reenacted to fill in visual gaps in the original Doc. So there’s the obvious question–as with any fiction that has already been well-realized as a Documentary: Why make this? Unfortunately, Last Breath fails to answer this question in any satisfying way. If you haven’t seen the Documentary and find deep sea stories even slightly compelling, go watch it as soon as you can. That’s my Review. But if you need a couple of in-depth reasons (see what I did there?) to avoid the remake, read on.

The story of Last Breath is inescapably-compelling, and there are moments in this version that make me hold my breath–without getting into spoilers. But almost all of its minor successes are tied to the nature of the real life events, in spite of the filmmaking decisions (an overbearing score, forgettable dialogue and bland characters), and they all clearly pale in comparison to watching the real thing. There’s also a few elements of this particular story that make it very difficult to adapt into a good movie. Unlike other great survival reenactments–your Apollo 13s and Society of the Snows, most of the characters in Last Breath are separated by vast distances, or incapable of saying much that isn’t already pretty obvious. The Documentary makes much-needed use of talking heads to get inside the diver’s minds and understand how they processed the events on a moment-by-moment basis. The decision to frame Chris Lemons as the main character is a real Catch-22. On one hand, his life is on the line, but on the other, he spends an awful lot of time completely unconscious. Also, not a whole lot happens. At 93 minutes, Last Breath still feels padded, with quite a bit of exposition and resolution on either side of the real meat of the story. It’s a tale that requires the direct testimony and analysis of its characters if you want to extend it beyond a paragraph or two. Once again, perfect for a Doc. Not so much a linear dramatization.

And Parkinson makes a questionable storytelling decision or two (again, trying to avoid spoilers) that makes me wonder if he’s assuming people have seen the doc before they see this new version, or if he’s simply forgotten what it’s like to hear the story for the first time. The final passage of the Movie, which reverts back to real footage, feels like an unintentional admission that he simply can’t compete against his own Documentary.

Last Breath is a competent, TV Movie-level accounting of a riveting real-life story. But in a world where we already have a vastly superior doc from the same Filmmaker, this film cannot justify its existence and I cannot recommend anything other than watching the 2019 film instead.

Elevation Pictures release LAST BREATH February 27, 2025.