The Air I Breathe | 
| Director: Jieho Lee
Actors: Brendan Fraser, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Andy Garcia, Kevin Bacon, Forest Whitaker
Studio: Velocity / Thinkfilm
Category: DVD
List Price: $27.98
Buy Used: $0.74
You Save: $27.24 (97%)
New (44) Used (106) Collectible (1) from $0.74
Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 14139
Format: Color, Dolby, Dvd, Enhanced, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled)
Genre: none
Rating: R (Restricted)
ESRB: Teen
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 95 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: 4939
UPC: 014381493924
EAN: 0014381493924
ASIN: B0014Z4OKW
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Release Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
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
Product Description
THE STORIES OF A CLAIRVOYANT GANGSTER, A RISING POP STAR, AN UNLIKELY BANK ROBBER & A DOCTOR DESPERATE TO SAVE THE LOVE OF HIS LIFE. FILLED WITH SURPRISING TWISTS & TURNS, THIS EMPLOYS BOTH BRUTAL VIOLENCE & ACHING POETRY IN A MOVING EXPLORATION OF THE SEARCH FOR HAPPINESS IN A GRITTY URBAN WORLD.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
What a great movie May 15, 2009
piercedninj4
This movie was on my Netflix list and when I got it I didn't even know what the movie was about (I just put it on my list because I love Brendan Frasier). As soon as I watched the movie I bought it.
What a great movie! Suspense, sadness, drama, amazing acting. I cried. Absolutely recommended.
Thought provoking, intriguing, intense. Leading Thespians chose it, SO search for what they felt so compelled to tell. April 20, 2009
Emanuel Perdis (NSW Australia)
This film fits the "Crash" formula, although it's hardly a prizewinner - which is not to say it's awful. The movie takes itself way too seriously, and it doesn't add up to much, but, nevertheless, it's borderline entertaining and philosophically stimulating. The performances have a certain tanginess. Perhaps the stars felt freer than usual because, thanks to the film's episodic structure, none of them had to carry the entire movie.
Its layered, interconnected and thought provoking. Definitely allegorical and disturbingly real.
The first of four episodes focuses on a mousy, unhappy businessman (Forest Whitaker, convincingly pathetic) who overhears a tip on a horse race. He tries to change his life by taking a loan from mobsters and betting it all on a horse. Along the way, this man encounters a mob henchman (Brendan Fraser, strong and often silent), and we eventually discover that he can see the future. The second section of the film concerns what happens when the mob kingpin (a commanding Andy Garcia) assigns this henchman the task of keeping an eye on his out-of-control nephew (Emile Hirsch, amusingly amok).
In part four, an up-and-coming singer (Sarah Michelle Gellar, effectively distraught) abruptly learns that the kingpin has acquired her management contract. She wants nothing to do with him but discovers that his desire to control her career is the kind of offer you can't refuse.
The final segment concerns a doctor (a properly pensive Kevin Bacon) who loves a woman (Julie Delpy, appropriately angelic) who suddenly finds herself at death's door. It's up to the doctor to devise a plan to save her - a plan that somehow includes the singer from the previous segment. And to keep the story spinning round and round, it turns out that the singer has a connection to the businessman from the first segment.
If this sounds rather contrived, it is. And the various parts of the story don't robviously fit together.
The performances give the film a lift. And if the accomplished, eclectic cast was not enough to put The Air I Breathe in contention for a major award, it certainly could help to make you a winner the next time you play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.
Disturbing March 23, 2009
Richard Godin (Nouvelle Caledonie)
I've seen reviews of people who do not like this movie. I can understand them. But I liked the " bizzare " aspect of it and the way it was filmed. The circumvolution of the scenario. For people who don't need cars that explode and couples who fall in love to the excess and too much passion, it's a good movie you should enjoy. Casting is quite exceptional too.
 The best ever March 19, 2009
B. Trias
I must say that this is the best movie I've ever seen so far. It's great in so many ways and I always that I recomended to someone the answer is always "it's a great movie". What else can I say? ;)
Why isn't everybody raving about this movie? March 2, 2009
Reader (Chicago, IL USA)
What a fantastic film that puts together four forms of human condition: Happiness, Pleasure, Love and Sorrow in a form of four main characters that mysteriously have their lives intersect with each other in the most unsual ways.
The cast of this film is great - I cannot pick a single actor over the other because the entire cast gives their best performaces they can. Retelling the story will not give this movie justice. Also, giving this movie 5 stars does not do it justice because it requires twice as many. That is how good this movie really is. This film is a keeper for anyone's personal DVD film library.
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