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Description: In this powerful film, four very different people on the edge of desperation are unexpectedly linked by their destinies. A top-notch cast featuring Forest Whitaker, Andy Garcia, Kevin Bacon, Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Emile Hirsch unforgettably brings to life the stories of a clairvoyant gangster, a rising pop star, an unlikely bank robber and a doctor desperate to save the love of his life. Filled with surprising twists and turns, this suspenseful, action-filled drama employs both brutal violence and aching poetry in a moving exploration of the search for happiness in a gritty urban world.Amazon.com: Every so often a crime drama with delusions of existential grandeur comes ambling down the pike. Sometimes, as in Tom Tykwer's Run Lola Run, a philosophically-inclined filmmaker strikes cinematic gold. If video director Jieho Lee's erratic debut falls short of that estimable mark, he can't be faulted for lack of ambition. Set in an anonymous urban metropolis and divided into the four pillars of life--happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love--The Air I Breathe means to illustrate Henry Ward Beecher's opening epigram: "No emotion, anymore than a wave, can long retain its own individual form." A mild-mannered stockbroker representing happiness (The Last King of Scotland's Forest Whitaker) kickstarts this disquisition into destiny when he decides to take a risk (all four principals are unnamed). Inspired by a coolly confident client who stands for pleasure (Brendan Fraser), he places an unwieldy bet on a fixed race, attracting the attention of sadistic loan shark Fingers (Andy Garcia, doing his best Al Pacino impression). Fraser's character reports to the latter, who manages sorrowful pop star "Trista" (Sarah Michelle Gellar, last seen in the equally strange Southland Tales). The psychic henchman also looks after his employer's motormouth nephew, Tony (an uncharacteristically unconvincing Emile Hirsch). The lovelorn doctor (Kevin Bacon) who treats the hitman after an injury turns to Trista when his best friend's wife (Julie Delpy) falls ill. Whew. Inconsistent acting and clunky dialogue aside, The Air I Breathe infuses conventional genre thrills with introspection to intermittently engaging effect. --Kathleen C. Fennessy
Customer Reviews:
- great movie: I thought this movie was really good. It has a brilliant concept and the actors gave stellar performances. Andy Garcia was very scary. We've never seen Brendan Fraser in a role such as this. Sarah Michelle Gellar made you really feel the Sorrow in her character in this movie, one of her two that will be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. It seemed like each emotion, had its own little movie, like a short story, yet at the same time they all tied together to make one whole movie.
This is not a movie that would do well at the box-office, but it is still a great movie. - Butterfly Effected: Butterfly Effected
Intelligent film, good direction, mediocre casting and pretty good acting. So why not more than three stars? I think this film gains a lot of ground on account of good performances,but it tries to incorporate too much and so the actors always seem so new. The characters never grew on me. Infact, maybe the film could have been longer and some people who were terribly miscast like a character called Fingers could have been done differently. There is nothing truly overwhelming about the film. The story is great and the book must be a must read we'll never read.
Brendon Fraser. It's been long since I saw him in a film. He did a pretty good job but I'm so used to him being the moral hero that his Terminator'ish performance semmed slightly politely out of place. Andy Garcia should not have been a part of this film. He looks uncomfortable to this cynic from the very first scene. Emile Hirsch, the guy from the excellent *INTO THE WILD* is a part of this film too. He has a small role but he was ok with a very bad haircut.
The film didn't lack a message. The film had too many messages and it all seemed a bit rushed. The last scene will make a lot of youngsters smile while people worked up from their hard worked weekdays will wear a middle school frown.
AIR I BREATHE is well worthy of being viewed. Atleast once.
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