REVIEW: LAST BREATH

4/5

My Next Breath

93 Mins. Starring: Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu, Finn Cole, Bobby Rainsbury, Mark Bonnar & Cliff Curtis. Screenplay: Mitchell LaFortune, Alex Parkinson & David Brooks. Director: Alex Parkinson. In: Theatres.

Survival thrillers come thick and fast in Hollywood. 'Cast Away', 'The Martian', 'The Revenant'. Even the 'Alien' franchise, back down on 'Earth'. But it's when the stories are true that they strike a deeper chord. 'Apollo 13', 'The Finest Hours', 'Alive'. 'All Is Lost' starring the late, great icon Robert Redford (rest peacefully). They will always breathe life into movie scripts pitched. Right before corona, in 2019', the 'Last Breath' documentary made waves telling the true story of three deep sea divers, and their boat and crew, facing a recovery mission of impossible peril. Chris Lemons, Duncan Allock and David Yuasa, a team of saturation divers, were maintaining undersea gas lines in the North Sea when disaster struck. Transported 300 feet below sea level in a pressurized diving bell, Lemons and Yuasa worked on an undersea gas line manifold. Heavy seas caused their vessel above sea level to veer off course, dragging the diving bell, with Allock inside, with it. As Lemons and Yuasa scrambled to get back, Yuasa told Lemons (who he couldn't reach) to switch to his back-up oxygen supply because his umbilical line was about to snap, and he'd be lost under the sea. And then it did.

Pitch black depths then engulfed Lemons, who previously described to his fiancée that his job was like being in space, but underwater, as he had to find his way back to the top of the manifold, or else Yuasa would not be able to find him again. And if you thought that was bad, he only has ten minutes of emergency oxygen left to breathe. Making 'Last Breath' not just a movie, based on a documentary, but a true story no one wishes they were told by the fickle fingers of fate. After quarantine, director Alex Parkinson ('Lucy The Human Chimp') amazingly adapted his own documentary into a feature film, working on a script with Mitchell LaFortune and David Brooks. This is what makes this tense and taut thriller of survival as real and as raw as it gets. An epic, emotional journey that won't leave a dry eye in the pressurized contained house as everything spills over with heart and soul. Maintaining gas lines may sound like mundane work, but it's one of the most dangerous jobs in the world, and it's also what provides you with heating and hot water in the freezing winters. So, all sorts of respect is due. Not only for their survival, but for maintaining our own one.

Besides, you only have to watch the underwater, slow burning thrilling scene of this year's 'Mission: Impossible-The Final Reckoning', to see this sort of movie premise can just be as blockbuster exciting as chases via planes, trains or automobiles for your cinematic candy. But even the great Cruise couldn't stunt like this. This is what makes 'Last Breath', not just one of the most underrated movies of the year, but also one of the fittest when it comes to survival ones. Closing credit footage of the men will make you want to watch the 2019 documentary of the same name, but in this breath, the big-three of Chris Lemons, Duncan Allock and David Yuasa are honoured and played perfectly by Woody Harrelson, Simu Liu and Finn Cole. Cheers to Harrelson, as the 'True Detective' and 'Champions' veteran star is at his hallmark best, with fun and fond feelings. Whilst superhero Simu, of 'Shang-Chi' and 'Barbie' blockbuster fame, offers more nuance, no nonsense depth to his acting with focussed feeling. But it's 'Peaky Blinders' brother Finn Cole ('F9'), and his relationship with Bobby Rainsbury, who you'd literally go to the ends of the earth for. Even amongst a commanding Cliff Curtis and a moving and brilliant Mark Bonnar. Don't let this dive into a forgotten film. These three men deserve their story to be told in a movie, and now it has been...twice. It breathes on. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Further Filming: 'The Guardian', 'Deepwater Horizon', 'Last Breath (2019 Documentary)'.