Alex Parkinson’s adventure thriller, a remake of his own 2019 documentary about a miracle at sea, pumps a steady stream of adrenaline by conjuring the setting of one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet.
Off the coast of Aberdeen, 300 feet below the surface of the North Sea, saturation divers are tasked with maintaining telecommunication pipes. Although it comes with an above-average risk of death, there are rewards for such a cool job. Or so Chris (Peaky Blinders’ Finn Cole) tells his fiancée with a mock-swagger.
That Chris’s cockiness is about to be tested is telegraphed as starkly as a red distress flare will later glow in the depths of the ocean. Parkinson rushes through the obligatory life-stakes set-up before hustling Chris aboard the good ship Tharos. Here, Chris reconnects with ‘Sat Daddy’ Duncan (Woody Harrelson), an affable dive veteran under threat of being retired, and meets brusque ace Dave (Shang-Chi’s Simu Liu), a focused pro who will be diver 1 to Chris’s diver 2 once the job is underway.
As the lads bed down in the silver, oxygen-boosting cylinder they call home, a grudging bonhomie starts to bloom. It’s the soothingly familiar kind found in every male bonding movie from Top Gun to Cool Runnings.
The dark subaqueous world becomes a stage for a gripping survival drama
Those tropes are not an issue for a film whose originality stems from its attention to the procedural detail of a fascinating job. Parkinson’s documentary about this story (the real-life incident took place in 2012) translates to an absorbing depiction of the tools of the trade – such as the ‘umbilical cord’ connecting the divers to the diving bell – as well as the language used by a crew whose urgent decision-making under pressure is portrayed with affecting emotional restraint.
No prizes for guessing that something goes horribly wrong during Chris and Dave’s dive mission. The deep, dark subaqueous world becomes the stage for a gripping survival drama. Parkinson and cinematographer Nick Remy Matthews understand this underworld realm as a place of gauzy slowness where dread unfolds at a measured pace.
Meanwhile, on deck, the switch between professional and existential stakes is deftly expressed as each character is given a chance to register the weight of what’s happening. We’re put in the shoes of dive supervisor, Craig (Catastrophe’s Mark Bonnar), calculating whether a pincer tool will save a body or mangle it. And then we become every man and woman on Tharos making on-the-spot judgment calls without knowing whether this is a human rescue or – that chilling term – ‘body recovery’.
Last Breath depicts a workplace where instead of fabricated conflict coming from villainous colleagues, a team of people are battling with their own souls while under extreme duress. Their conscientious solidarity forms an undercurrent that breathes oxygen into the heart of this moving thriller.
In UK and Ireland cinemas Fri Mar 14. In US theaters now.