Final Breath opens in theaters Friday, February 28.
I like watching motion pictures about horrible jobs. Something that entails watching folks do unimaginable, harmful, probably lethal duties to earn their dwelling is sweet leisure in my e-book, particularly after I get to look at the proceedings whereas nestled inside a movie show recliner or below a blanket on my sofa, peeping by means of my fingers. Wonderful information for anybody who shares the identical sentiment: Final Breath, the thriller the place Woody Harrelson tries to save lots of a man who’s freezing and suffocating to dying on the backside of the ocean, is about what I might take into account the worst job in the entire world.
A part of the enjoyable of watching a film like Final Breath (and, regardless of its material, it’s nonetheless fairly enjoyable) is in seeing how a filmmaker depicts all the things that goes into making ready for an especially advanced and maybe even harmful job. On this case, it’s deep-sea saturation diving, which, going into Final Breath, I knew little or no about – and, now that I’ve seen it, I really feel like I’m an skilled. The actors bandy about sci-fi-esque terminology like “heliox” and “umbilical tether” whereas sealing one another inside metallic tubes the place their insides can be pressurized based on the atmospheres they’ll be working below at depth. It’s an totally fascinating course of, and a comparatively straightforward means to ensure your viewers is locked in for no matter occurs subsequent.
It additionally has the additional advantage of being about one thing that really occurred not that way back: a real-life accident during which diver Chris Lemons’ connections to air, warmth, and communications techniques onboard his assist vessel have been severed, marooning him on the backside of the North Sea with solely a small backup provide of oxygen. His fellow divers Duncan Allcock and David Yuasa launched into a daring mission to get Lemons again to the floor, not realizing if it could be a rescue or a physique restoration.
Final Breath performs issues by the e-book, a sometimes tense survival drama with all of the terrifying missteps and provoking moments of human endurance that go together with it. The trio of leads is a research in inventory character varieties: Lemons (Finn Cole) is the youthful beginner decided to show himself to the professionals. Allcock (Harrelson) is the paternal veteran making an attempt to get essentially the most out of his final project earlier than retirement. Yuasa (Simu Liu) carries himself with the zen-like depth one might anticipate from somebody whose day job is making an attempt to not die on the backside of the ocean. It’s savvy to maintain issues feeling this acquainted, given the wild actuality Final Breath dramatizes.
And, boy, is it wild. We get a front-row seat to the interior workings of saturation diving: Actors are consistently yanking heavy diving fits on and off, and a big portion of the motion was filmed underwater. Scenes aboard the assist vessel’s bridge (captained by Cliff Curtis – I at all times love seeing him) are bookended by vertigo-inducing photographs of the prow plunging into troughs between 50-foot swells. Director Alex Parkinson reuses among the actual footage he gathered for the 2019 documentary he made in regards to the accident (additionally known as Final Breath, and co-directed by Richard da Costa), together with one really terrible shot of an unconscious Lemons going into oxygen deprivation shock. There are occasions when what’s onscreen feels overwhelming, and then you definately keep in mind that all of this genuinely occurred. That information provides an actual sense of awe {that a} fully made-up story simply wouldn’t have the ability to conjure.
Final Breath primarily succeeds due to what it’s about. The actors are succesful, the script retains issues easy, and the path from Parkinson is superb (props to the underwater filming crew). That’s actually all it takes for a film like this – my solely actual gripe is that the archetypal anxious girlfriend character (Bobby Rainsbury) is little greater than that, a personality sort that’s extra irritating for the way ubiquitous it’s on this form of film. I used to be simply completely happy to be watching a bunch of individuals operating round on the ocean ground making an attempt to not freeze to dying And I used to be even happier to not be down there with them.
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