By Simon Thompson
The Joachim Heden directed, and Andrew Prendergast/ Nick Saltrese scripted The Last Breath is a frustrating viewing experience which sadly wastes its beautiful shooting locations and cast of pretty capable actors, on a rather trite and cliched outing with the lingering flavour of an Alan Partridge-style elevator pitch combining Moby Dick, Jaws and Luc Besson’s The Big Blue.
The plot of The Last Breath focuses on Noah (Jack Parr) and his older mentor Levi ( Julian Sands), who both run a scuba-diving business in the Caribbean. While out diving one day Noah discovers the wreckage of an American World War II ship named the USS Charlotte, a wreck that his business partner Levi had forged an almost Ahab-like obsession with for decades.
Before the two can report the ship to the relevant authorities, however, Noah’s old friends from America decide to visit the island, and after letting the secret of the ship slip after having a few drinks, Noah’s obnoxious high-flying Wall Street friend Brett begs Noah to take him and the rest of their mates out to see it- safety be damned. Noah, needing Brett’s fifty grand to keep his and Levi’s business afloat, begrudgingly accepts, despite the lurking danger of nearby sharks.
One element this movie does have in its favour is that the underwater cinematographer by Eric Borjeson is absolutely stunning to look at, with his camera capturing the serene yet haunting beauty of its underwater setting. The constant use of tight angles by Heden and Borjeson really builds a tight claustrophobic atmosphere that adds to the genuinely well executed and convincing shark attack scenes.
The characterisation and script however, leave much to be desired. The dialogue is obvious to the point where you can finish character’s lines in your head before they’ve even said them, and the characters themselves all conform to various hackneyed tropes (e.g the plucky older mentor, the sexy love interest, the walking moronic cannon fodder etc) that have all the charisma and personality of sock puppets. This is a shame because I’ve seen members of this cast, such as Julian Sands, Alexander Arnold and Jack Parr, act well in other things- so it’s clear that it’s the script to blame, rather than a complete lack of talent on their parts.
The romantic element of the film’s narrative between Noah and the character Sam (Kim Spearman) comes across as being tacked on at the last second. While Prendergast and Saltrese do set this plotline up at the beginning, it is still clumsily implemented because the romantic chemistry between the two characters has about as much spark and tension as an overcast Sunday afternoon drive in Milton Keynes because you can see the end result from a mile away.
To conclude, The Last Breath is a dull and unimaginative watch that in spite of some truly horrific shark attack kills, is still replete with wafer thin character writing, uninteresting dialogue, and a lack of atmosphere due to the predictable nature of the plot. Sadly it is simply aggressively bland to the extent that I wouldn’t even recommend it as a piece of Shark Attack 3 : The Megalodon– style so bad it’s good fun.
The Last Breath is now available on DVD.
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