The Last Breath
The Last Breath
This is a predictable thriller where CGI sharks tear old college buddies apart in the last film of revered actor Julian Sands. The Last Breath is deliberately a low-budget indie film with typical underdeveloped and one-dimensional characters. Nevertheless, Swedish director Joachim Hedén’s deep knowledge of underwater genre makes it more than mere surface-oriented cinema for its buck. The Last Breath is well shot and edited but fails with its ordinary script that lacks any surprises. There you have it, it’s obvious who won’t be making the boat ride back to shore.
Firstly, there is an opening scene with USS Charlotte being torpedoed by a German U-boat in 1944 in the Caribbean Sea. A number of sailors survive the attack but end up meeting their bloody deaths among the wreckage floating on water. Presently, Captain Levi (Sands) and first mate Noah (Jack Parr) are laughed at by a luxury ship which passes them talking about how futile they are. He has spent several decades trying to locate the Charlotte himself personally. And so it goes every time Noah dives next after that fateful find of his before now too long ago; he comes up with something amazing while still underwater this time though:
What follows here might not be as simple as quitting alcohol or anything even remotely close to that type of decision-making process but rather what should follow when someone chooses to stop drinking altogether without warning instead? The thirst for excitement turns into screams of terror once we meet some residents living under water on board charlotte.
The Last Breath presents these besties as excellent divers who are foolishly too confident about themselves. What needs to be done when searching such ships Noah says it confidently because he knows them so much… They have ropes, magnets and radio communication losing contact with other people naturally …Hedén took important scuba details very seriously unlike his previous two films namely Breaking Surface and The Dive which were filmed under water also. The director wants the audience to know that they are not newbies who are going to their deaths.
This story goes bad when one sees characters acting stupidly at the time when prudence and experience should guide them. It is almost like running aimlessly into darkness without any sense of direction, but not quite. Why don’t we just turn back in order not to run out of air? At some point during every ill-fated expedition someone did say if we stick together nothing bad will happen. Their hubris as written in the script only pleases starving sharks.
The Last Breath does not contain bloodthirsty predators falling on each other like piranhas. While inside USS Charlotte’s dark corridors with maze-like structure, Hedén seeks to create suspense. If something was afoot, he made sure everyone knew about it through loud bangs and ominous shadows. This means that there is going to be a feast soonest possible. In reality, this would have been better for real jump-scare moments had it gone all out and made the sharks strike unexpectedly? Not every action scene set-up was necessary. By doing so, all these early hints were wasting chances for more frights happening later on; for instance one of them would have been fantastic were it not predictable from miles away.
The sharks don’t look very real and they are computerized. They are grayish objects over black backgrounds with no zooming in or out on them for long or detailed sequences. Normally, this would be a fatal flaw, but Hedén’s camera work is so smooth that the gory aftermath almost makes up for it. They flash quickly by with human chunks and viscera left floating in bloody suspension. The minor thrill that exists comes from the possibility of there still being sharks lurking around for a bit longer than just mere seconds. But again, the film does not exploit its own silence towards the unknown. You know when they’re swooping in to devour.
Others had chances to deviate from the predictable road taken by The Last Breath. In actuality all characters who are jerk die horrible deaths instead of becoming meals for sharks as here Andrew Prendergast and Nick Saltrese do not take any risks with their cast,. Would it have been such a terrible sin to have sweetness and caring shredded for the appetizer? Personality type doesn’t matter to these creatures who don’t know what kindness is.
One aspect of production design stands out, but for all the wrong reasons. The USS Charlotte has been underwater 80 years yet has no rust, silt, barnacles or organic matter whatsoever somehow. This is an unconvincing piece of information given that does not make sense at all. However good parts of Last Breath do exist; nevertheless it is uneven throughout so I cannot recommend it.
This was produced by Anamorphic Media, Filmgate Films, Freebie Films etc.: see also RLJE Films now available on demand as well as in limited theatrical release anywhere near you soon!
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- Genre: Featured, horror, Popular Movies, Thriller, Top Rated Movies
- Country: Sweden, United Kingdom
- Director: Joachim Hedén
- Cast: Kim Spearman, Jack Parr, Alexander Arnold, Erin Mullen, Arlo Carter, Julian Sands, Maxime Durand,
