‘The Last Breath’ Review
Stars: Julian Sands, Jack Parr, Arlo Carter, Erin Mullen, Kim Spearman, Alexander Arnold | Written by Andrew Prendergast, Nick Saltrese | Directed by Joachim Hedén
Notably, The Last Breath features the last performance by the late Julian Sands (The Piper, Warlock) to reach the screen. Sadly, it’s a supporting role that doesn’t give him, or more likely his stunt double, a lot of screen time or much to do until the end of the film…
1944, somewhere off the US Virgin Islands, a German U Boat sinks the USS Charlotte. There are survivors, but where there are survivors, there are sharks. In the present, Levi (Julian Sands) has been searching for the wreck for decades, and, along with Noah (Jack Parr; Abomination, Bone Breaker) he’s finally found it.
A group of Noah’s friends, Logan (Arlo Carter; The Wind and the Whimpering, Oceans Between), Riley (Erin Mullen; Midsomer Murders), Sam (Kim Spearman; The Young Cannibals, Glamour) who happens to be Noah’s ex, and her instantly hateable brother Brett (Alexander Arnold; Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool, The Outpost) arrive for a vacation. When he hears about the discovery, Brett offers Levi an absurd amount of money to dive it before it’s reported and placed off limits. Since chartering tourists and searching for wrecks has left him in debt, and with his boat at stake, he reluctantly agrees.
Director Joachim Hedén has already dealt with trapped divers in Breaking Surface, which was later remade, not by him, as The Dive. But in the script by Andrew Prendergast (An American Exorcism, The Courier) and Nick Saltrese (A Prayer Before Dawn, Put Your Coat On) it’s not a rockfall but a shark that’s keeping them from surfacing. Pendegrast and Saltrese bring the shark experience, being the producer and writer, respectively, of Shark Bait.
Of course, the dive quickly goes sideways, Brett refuses to listen when Noah suggests they’ve been down long enough and pushes their air supply to the limit. And when they find an air pocket in the wreck, he and Logan ignore the warning about the effect of drinking booze under pressure. So when a pack of great whites show up, ripping open one diver’s leg off and trapping them in the wreck, they’re in extremely deep shit.
Admittedly, the first half of The Last Breath is less than impressive. Noah’s friends are the usual collection of stereotypes, stoner, flake, Wall Street asshole and really sweet ex, Levi’s money issues, underwater scenes that were obviously filmed in a tank, etc. But, once the sharks show up, things get a lot better. The wreck makes a setting that’s not only claustrophobic but also allows for variations on the usual proceedings, such as air pockets, sharp, and or falling, pieces of metal etc.
And the attacks are occasionally gruesome, with some shredded flesh and missing limbs. It looks to be a mixture of practical and CGI gore. Much of it works, but one scene in particular looks so obviously fake it ruins the scene.
Elsewhere, the CGI sharks are a bit of a mixed bag, some look fairly good, and others are typical of what you expect for a mid-budget film like this. The scenes of the Charlotte’s demise are another weak point, from the cartoonish sub and torpedo to the ship itself, which seems to be a static, unmoving image of the half-submerged ship shown repeatedly. There’s also a weird plot angle with the sharks themselves, they’re there when the ship goes down, but later Noah says there haven’t been any attacks off the island as long as he can remember. Are they some sort of curse attached to the ship, or did they just coincidentally show up now?
But if you can get past that, The Last Breath is a better-than-average shark thriller with several good scares. Yes, it could have been better, but considering some of the other similar films that have swum our way over the past few years, we also know it could have been a hell of a lot worse.
*** 3/5
RLJE Films will release The Last Breath to theatres as well as to Digital and VOD Platforms on July 26th.
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