The Air I Breathe

A crime drama with delusions of existential grandeur, writer-director Jieho Lee's erratic debut—set in an anonymous urban metropolis (the movie was filmed in Mexico City)—is inspired by an ancient Chinese proverb dividing life into four emotional pillars: happiness, pleasure, sorrow, and love. Opening with an epigram from progressive preacher Henry Ward Beecher ("no emotion, any more than a wave, can long retain its own individual form"), The Air I Breathe is comprised of four interconnected vignettes featuring unnamed central characters. In “Happiness,” a mild-mannered stockbroker (Forest Whitaker)—after hearing colleagues talking about a fixed horse race—bets heavily, which threatens a scheme cooked up by sadistic loan shark Fingers (Andy Garcia, doing his best Al Pacino impression). In “Pleasure,” Fingers' coolly confident hit man (Brendan Fraser) looks after his employer's motor-mouth nephew Tony (Emile Hirsch) during a night on the town. In “Sorrow,” Fraser's character runs into sorrowful pop star "Trista" (Sarah Michelle Gellar), whose contract is now owned by Fingers. And in “Love,” a lovelorn doctor (Kevin Bacon) turns to Trista for a blood transfusion when his best friend's wife (Julie Delpy) is bitten by a poisonous snake. Got all that? Inconsistent acting and banal dialogue aside, The Air I Breathe tries to wed conventional genre thrills with philosophical introspection, but is only intermittently engaging. Not a necessary purchase. [Note: DVD/Blu-ray extras include audio commentary (by director/co-writer Jieho Lee, co-writer Bob DeRosa, cinematographer Walt Lloyd, and editor Robert Hoffman), five minutes of deleted scenes, outtakes (2 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for a disappointing film.] (K. Fennessy)