Last Breath | 2025
Woody Harrelson stars as Duncan Allcock in LAST BREATH, a Focus Features release.
There's something agreeably no-nonsense about Alex Parkinson's Last Breath, a straight-down-the-middle, meat-and-potatoes true-life rescue thriller the likes of which we rarely see anymore. Perhaps I'm looking at the past through rose-colored glasses, but there once was a time when mid-budget actioners like this were multiplex staples. Nowadays, you're more likely to see movies like this relegated to streaming rather than playing on a big screen.
That's not to say that Last Breath is some old-fashioned masterpiece. It's a solid, workman-like film, a perfectly entertaining piece of popcorn entertainment that stands a cut above the average Hollywood fare. The film recounts the incredible true story of a deep sea diver whose air supply was cut during an attempt to repair an oil pipeline. What ensues is a hair-raising race against time to return the ship to the site of the accident in the middle of a storm to retrieve him from the bottom of the ocean, and with only 10 minutes of oxygen left, the clock is ticking. Woody Harrelson stars as Duncan, a grizzled diver out on one last mission before being forcibly retired, with Simu Liu as a stoic team leader whose expertise in the field has become legendary and is called to face his most impossible task yet.
It's a sea-faring adventure drama in the vein of The Perfect Storm, Deepwater Horizon, and The Finest Hours - in other words, a movie tailor-made in a lab to appeal to me. There's a very specific dad-movie vibe here that one could imagine becoming a TNT staple, and I mean that with the greatest possible affection. There's nothing particularly groundbreaking about Last Breath; its script is occasionally wonky, and it doesn't deviate much from its familiar trappings. Still, it is solidly directed by first-time narrative filmmaker Parkinson, who previously helmed a 2019 documentary about this incident, also titled Last Breath. It's clear that he found something about this event inspiring, and he manages to wring a great amount of tension out of something that only lasted for about thirty minutes because he keeps the story rooted in who these characters are outside of their heightened environment.
Films like this deserve our support at the movie theaters. They're not event films, they're likely not destined to become blockbuster hits, but this kind of midbudget thriller feels increasingly like dying breed, soon to fall victim to ever-decreasing theatrical windows. I'd gladly take 20 of these for one over-stuffed, visually murky Marvel film; something with heart that builds a grounded world worth investing in. Last Breath hits every expected note, but it hits them well, getting the job done in a brisk 90 minutes with no frills, no fuss, and a craftsman-like confidence.
