The Last Breath

That an actor named Sands should die in the hills after filming at sea is a pun too weird to not mention. It is as if director Joachim Hedén’s The Last Breath has accidentally mounted this illustrious thespian into perfect Feng Shui. Thankfully, humor was one of the many qualities Sands brought to his work. He was always celebrated for never taking it too seriously, rather enjoying the pleasures of his chosen craft as his first prerogative throughout his career, doing the fun indie work and turning down the nonsense.

He will be missed greatly. So, his fine performance here is bittersweet to watch. Tan and energetic from his personal religion of hiking, it seems clear he was taken too soon. He shows in this film the sort of spark that was so sensational in Bill Nighy’s late career. Thankfully, the character he is given by writers Andrew Prendergast and Nick Saltrese is pretty juicy: an eternal ‘parrot head,’ a barnacle fused to a pauper’s life in the Caribbean. Sands uses his own West Riding, Northern English accent to great effect to portray an amusing alien wizened by the sun. His Levi, captain of the rickety boat used for the dives we see, is a kind of human rum and raisin. He is a high note whenever he is on screen.

“Levi and his young protege Noah discover a legendary WW2 wreck…”

The plot is pretty straightforward; Levi and his young protege Noah (Jack Parr) discover a legendary WW2 wreck – seen being torpedoed by Nazis in a pointless opening scene. Noah and Levi, destitute, agree to let his rich, big-city friends have the first dive on the wreck.

A great deal of terrific work has clearly gone into making this film, with scenes on land and in water captured with insight and skill. Dive footage is inky and chilly black, making the space around the divers genuinely oppressive. The photography of boats and island life is rock solid. The sets drive the action well, with a high concept quest inside the wreck of a World War 2 battleship—which turns out to be a home to great white sharks.