Movie Breakdown: Last Breath

Pre-Screening Stance:

Despite having a pretty good cast – Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole, Cliff Curtis, etc. – and being based on one heck of a true story, I feel like I haven’t seen anyone at all talking about Last Breath. Either way, I’m looking forward to it.

Post-Screening Ramble:

Last Breath isn’t the first time that director Alex Parkinson has told the tale of Chris Lemons, he first did it with a documentary of the same name back in 2019. I get why he would return to it – the true story of a saturation diver trapped 300+ feet beneath the surface (all alone and with incredibly limited resources) is some compelling stuff – but I think in this instance his experience with the accident works against him. This isn’t to say the film is bad – it’s perfectly adequate – but it’s very, very lean, almost as though Parkinson is just running you down the bullet points of what happened and then expecting that to be enough. Clearly, Lemons survived his harrowing experience because, you know, no one would ever make a movie where all of the efforts to save him just outright fail, so why isn’t it a deep dive (mildly sorry) into the work and skill that went into retrieving him? You see some of it and the actors involved are talented enough to generally sell it, but there’s just not enough detail or tension to really grab you and pull you in, which is pretty wild considering the story it’s telling. Maybe, just maybe this is one film that could have benefited from a longer runtime (it’s barely 90 minutes as is).

If I were you, I’d wait to catch Last Breath at home. If you’re hankering to get to a theater though, you could do worse – the film opens tomorrow, February 28.

One Last Thought:

Just like the film itself, I don’t have anything to add here.