Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Joachim Hedén
Starring: Julian Sands, Kim Spearman, Jack Parr, Alexander Arnold, Erin Mullen, Arlo Carter
Following the tail fin of the recent
Something in the Water
comes another British shark thriller in director Joachim Hedén's
The Last Breath. This one is hoping we won't realise it's British, with its young cast
adopting American accents, and to my ears at least, pulling it off
reasonably well. In his final role before he sadly perished while hiking,
Julian Sands is allowed a British accent but it's not his own RP
brogue, rather a broad Yorkshire drawl that sounds like he's impersonating
Sean Bean.
Sands plays salty seadog Levi, who makes a living taking tourists on diving
trips in the British Virgin Islands along with his young employee Noah (Jack Parr). Levi's true passion is in searching for the wreck of the USS Charlotte,
which has been lost since it sank during WWII. In a prologue we see the
battleship go down, its sailors instantly chomped on by sharks ala the real
life USS Indianapolis, subject of Robert Shaw's famous
Jaws monologue. One day while out on the water Levi and Noah
stumble across the Charlotte at the bottom of the ocean.
That night Noah is joined by four of his friends from New York, all of whom
just happen to fall into genre stereotypes. There's Noah's ex Sam (Kim Spearman), a kindly doctor who might as well have "FINAL GIRL" emblazoned on her
scuba gear; Wall Street douchebag Brett (Alexander Arnold);
irritating comic relief Logan (Arlo Carter); and ditzy blonde Riley
(Erin Mullen). When Noah spills the secret of the Charlotte, Brett
insists that the group take a dive to check it out the next morning, but
Levi refuses. That's until Brett offers $50,000, which is enough to get Levi
out of debt and keep his beloved boat.
Once inside the wreck, the young divers discover they're not alone: a bunch
of hungry sharks have made the Charlotte their home. Thus begins a fight for
survival, as along with the sharks, the divers have to contend with their
dwindling oxygen supplies.
While its characters are a collection of clichés, the cast does a good
enough job of bringing them to life. In just a few brief scenes early on we
feel like we know enough about these people to be invested in their ensuing
ordeal. But as soon as the movie's action becomes submerged in the depths of
the ocean, a major issue becmes all too apparent - we can't see a damn
thing! These depths are about as murky as it gets, making it virtually
impossible to figure out the geography of the claustrophobic setting.
It doesn't help that the actors spend most of the film with their faces
obscured by scuba masks, which makes it difficult to keep track of which
characters are on screen at any given time. Save for a few scenes where the
divers emerge from the water to an air pocket, removing their masks to expel
some exposition, the dialogue is all too obviously dubbed in
post-production. Close your eyes and you could be listening to a Scooby Doo
cartoon. Actually, you don't need to close your eyes as you can't see
anything anyway!
The conceit of the rapidly depleting oxygen supply is rendered moot as
there's no way for the audience to know what level each character's tank is
at, so every now and then the film will have its protagonists literally tell
us how much they have left. With its impenetrably murky picture and
over-reliance on dialogue, The Last Breath might as well be an
audio drama. The one asset of the dark image is that it covers up any
potentially dodgy shark effects. To my squinty eyes they appeared more
convincing than most low budget efforts.
The Last Breath is on UK/ROI VOD
from July 1st and in US cinemas and VOD from July 26th.
