There was a time after I went to Puerto Rico with my girlfriend and we have been speculated to go snorkeling. You already know, that enjoyable exercise the place you place your head a couple of inches beneath the water to see the attractive sea creatures? Yeah, I couldn’t do it. Backed out on the final second. Who wants dignity anyway? The characters in Final Breath journey 330 toes beneath the ocean. Basically, I’ve simply witnessed my worst nightmare.
A real story not like another, this movie tells the story of saturation divers who should journey deep beneath the ocean’s floor. When diver Chris Lemons (Finn Cole) has his umbilical wire severed, he turns into trapped within the ocean with out warmth or mild and solely a small quantity of fuel left in his respiratory tank. Final Breath chronicles the hassle to rescue Chris earlier than it’s too late. Director Alex Parkinson adapts his 2019 documentary in regards to the topic right into a narrative characteristic movie that works fairly nicely as an underwater thriller but in addition has a couple of hiccups that stop it from reaching its full potential.
There are specific leaps that have to be made when adapting a real story right into a Hollywood characteristic movie. No film based mostly on a real story is ever an eye-to-eye adaptation, however Final Breath is mostly a devoted retelling of this story. We first study a couple of issues about saturation diving, and the way it’s probably the most harmful jobs on the planet. These characters journey harmful territory, just like astronauts touring via outer house. Very similar to movies comparable to Apollo 13 and Gravity the place characters are caught in house, we now have folks trapped within the ocean. Very similar to in house, they’re floating round, they’ve a restricted quantity of oxygen, and in the event that they don’t get out of there quickly, they’re useless meat.
We first meet Chris in a loving romantic relationship with Morag (Bobby Rainsbury). The movie doesn’t give him an excessive amount of characterization, however it establishes that he’s newer to this job than the remainder of his friends and provides him one thing to lose. The emotional stakes are tied fairly intently to the bodily ones, which is critical for this story. We quickly meet a few of his co-workers, together with soon-to-be-retired Duncan Allcock (Woody Harrelson) and no-nonsense David Yuasa (Simu Liu). The primary act is essential to getting the viewers on top of things on these characters, however sadly, it solely flippantly touches on all of this.
There’s a greater model of this screenplay that pulls higher drama, pressure, and emotional stakes out of everybody. With Final Breath, it typically seems like we’re getting the naked minimal. Nevertheless, as soon as we now have our inciting incident, the film picks up significantly. Probably the greatest moments is when that umbilical wire snaps and all of the sound utterly cuts out. It’s a visceral directorial alternative that elicited a couple of audible gasps from my viewers. From right here, we even have an occasional timer that seems on display screen, displaying what number of minutes of oxygen Chris has left in his tank, and shortly sufficient, how lengthy he’s gone with zero oxygen left.
We even have loads of sequences in a management room the place persons are attempting to save lots of Chris remotely. These scenes work surprisingly nicely, particularly as a result of we now have gifted actors like Cliff Curtis and Mark Bonnar grounding all of it. However a superb chunk of the second act doesn’t characteristic Harrelson and Liu’s characters, although they’ve the potential to be essentially the most fascinating folks on display screen. Harrelson delivers great performances in every part he’s in, and he will get one monologue the place we find out how vital it’s for him to get Chris protected. Nevertheless, the anecdote he gives surrounds another person slightly than himself. If it have been himself, that drama would turn out to be even higher.
As for Liu’s character, that’s the most important missed alternative. He’s very curt originally of the movie, and he finally ends up changing into probably the most lively gamers in attempting to save lots of Chris’s life. This doesn’t absolutely work as a result of he isn’t a really fascinating character past that. The film offers him so much to do, significantly within the remaining act, however there isn’t sufficient there emotionally. If the film had created higher pressure between Chris and David within the first act, the payoff of David preventing to save lots of Chris’s life may have had higher weight. However many of the dialogue scenes find yourself changing into the great model, not the nice model of what they could possibly be.
However Final Breath takes you on a trip so intense that it’s onerous to not be invested on this story. You’re feeling each little bit of the hazard of this example. Even when the movie doesn’t provide world-ending stakes, the stakes are private and gripping as a result of it’s a few journey to save lots of one man’s life. Whereas it doesn’t attain its full potential, it’s a thrilling story by nature and it really works splendidly as a story of human resilience.
SCORE: 6/10
As sondramedia’s evaluate coverage explains, a rating of 6 equates to “First rate.” It fails to achieve its full potential and is a run-of-the-mill expertise.
Disclosure: sondramedia attended Focus Options‘ world premiere for our Final Breath evaluate.
