The Last Breath (2024)

 

"Unexpectedly Entertaining"

For enthusiasts of a certain kind of cinema there's plenty to be tickled by in THE LAST BREATH, a diving adventure movie (plus shark) that's just been released on Blu-ray and DVD by Signature in the UK.

In 1944 the USS Charlotte is sunk by a German torpedo just off the British Virgin Islands. Surviving navy officer Jimmy bobs around in the water for a bit and tries to save a colleague but ends up pulling the man's severed arm out of the water. His nonchalant response to this grisly discovery suggests such a thing may well have been an everyday occurrence for him. Who knows, perhaps it was.

The ship remains undiscovered for 60 years until, in the present day, Noah (Jack Parr) dives a few feet down from the boat of his friend Levi (the late Julian Sands) in just the right place and lo and behold, there it is. At the same time, four of his very broadly drawn caricatures of college friends turn up for a diving holiday. The obnoxious Wall Street one offers $50 000 for them to be taken down to the wreck. The one who acts like the comedy relief in a Hanna-Barbera cartoon has his mask and flippers fall off when he dives, while the overly sincere surgeon (more about her in a bit) turns out to be Noah's ex-girlfriend who left him due to his proposed slacker way of life.

Yes, there's a shark, but it takes a while to appear. Before it does we witness scenes and ideas lifted from Neil Marshall's THE DESCENT as well as TITANIC and THE ABYSS. In fact, while director Joachim Heden seems to want to emulate James Cameron, crappy dialogue like "Sharks don't have ears do they?" coupled with a terrible attempt at underwater surgery and the repeated demonstration of inaccurate diving techniques (thanks to Mrs Probert for that) ultimately mean this one is more like having Bruno Mattei, the director of such epics as CRUEL JAWS and SHOCKING DARK, back with us again.

All of this is to say that, approached in the right way, THE LAST BREATH is actually very entertaining, in an Italian early 1980s direct to VHS shark movie ripoff kind of way. There's even a final shot of New York where you can add your own bit about how zombies have entered the building. Here's the trailer:

THE LAST BREATH is out now on Blu-ray and DVD from Signature Entertainment