I really feel like there wasn’t a lot in the way in which of publicity or advertising round this one, so hopefully I can do my half to unfold the phrase, as a result of Final Breath was a strong time on the motion pictures. It’s a mixture survival and catastrophe film, showcasing a determined rescue operation in the course of a storm when a ship’s much-needed technological benefit stops working.
Final Breath is a kind of “primarily based on a real story” movies, however the director, Alex Parkinson, is aware of a factor or two about the subject material. That’s as a result of this film is a cinematic adaptation of the 2019 documentary of the identical identify, which he himself additionally co-directed. Each movies focus on a diving accident within the North Sea and the rescue effort that went into bringing considered one of their very own again. The divers are a crew despatched right down to the depths of 300 ft to restore pipes, one thing the movie states is without doubt one of the most harmful jobs on the planet. When a storm hits the dive website, the ship’s DPS techniques go offline and ship them adrift, inflicting the cords of one of many divers to snap, leaving him on the seabed with minimal oxygen left to outlive.
Bringing this story to life is a fairly nice forged doing nice work. I’d say nobody actor is actually the lead, as it is a movie that’s pushed by plot, not character, however everybody will get their time to shine. Woody Harrelson is unquestionably the most important actor concerned as Duncan Allock, the seasoned vet who’s on the cusp on retirement. He’s joined by Simi Liu’s David, thought-about to be the perfect diver within the business, and Finn Cole as Chris, the diver who’s on the coronary heart of this catastrophe. Cole spends quite a lot of the time beneath the ocean and thus, beneath a masks, however he’s the center and soul of the film because the accident revolves round him. The trio are joined by the likes of the at all times dependable Cliff Curtis because the ship’s Captain, with Mark Bonnar, MyAnna Buring, and Bobby Rainsbury in supporting roles.
One factor that stood out to me was the eye to element inside this film. All the things felt surgical and exact, and there was a good quantity of suspense concerned with the countdown to rescue Chris relative to the quantity of oxygen left in his tank. Couple that with the storm above and the whole darkness and this film had a shocking quantity of thrills and pressure. We study rather a lot concerning the course of and the setup of a dive as nicely, which I admire, reminiscent of compression and the kind of air being funnelled into the our bodies of the divers earlier than going into the water. The way in which the movie is shot and framed jogged my memory quite a lot of Deepwater Horizon, and that’s a robust praise. Or, to place it one other method, it appears like a dramatized documentary.
Being 300ft under the floor, this film is close to pitch black at occasions, with the one gentle sources coming from flashlights or flares. I admire how the film opted to not make it simpler for the viewers by having floodlights for our profit, because the darkness made the stress that rather more palpable.
In case you’re searching for a movie that’s a decent ninety minutes with some nice pressure, respect and data of the real-life occasion, and a focus to element of the career, Final Breath is unquestionably value watching. I’m curious concerning the documentary now and surprise simply how completely different the present viewing experiences will probably be, and if the existence of a dramatized model is even wanted when there’s a well-received documentary model on the market. Hopefully, I can watch a duplicate of that in due time.
