93 min | PG-13 | February 28, 2025 | Peacock
Alex Parkinson remakes his own 2019 documentary as a survival thriller. Woody Harrelson leads a rescue effort hundreds of feet below the ocean. Taut, efficient, terrifying.
Survival films work when they understand that tension comes from competence under pressure, not hysteria. Last Breath understands this completely. A commercial diver gets stranded on the ocean floor when his umbilical line severs. His crewmates have minutes to save him before his oxygen runs out. The film watches professionals do their jobs while the clock ticks down. No melodrama. Just procedural precision and mounting dread.
Woody Harrelson plays the dive supervisor with the weathered authority of a man who has seen things go wrong before and knows how to stay calm when they do. Simu Liu, Finn Cole, and Cliff Curtis fill out the crew with performances that feel lived-in and real. These are not characters. These are men doing dangerous work who suddenly face the worst-case scenario they’ve all trained for. The underwater sequences are claustrophobic and visceral.
Parkinson directed the documentary version of this story and knows the material intimately. The feature dramatization adds nothing unnecessary. No subplots. No romance. No backstory beyond what’s needed to understand who these men are and what’s at stake. The film trusts the inherent drama of the situation and delivers it with surgical efficiency.
This is lean, focused storytelling that respects its audience and delivers exactly what survival thrillers should be. This is craft over flash. Tension over spectacle.