Jieho Lee’s debut thriller is based on an Asian proverb which breaks down life into happiness, sorrow, pleasure and love. The film has four sections, each focusing on a character representing one of these emotions. They all come together in the end — just not in a very convincing way.
Forest Whitaker, a minor cog in the banking machine, loses his savings and more on a horse and gets beaten up by Andy Garcia’s crime boss as a consequence. Meanwhile, the boss’s enforcer (Brendan Fraser) falls in love with a rising singer whom the boss controls (Sarah Michelle Gellar).
Then there’s the doctor (Kevin Bacon), who’s in love with his best friend’s wife (Julie Delpy), searching hysterically for the antidote when she’s bitten by a snake.
Lee’s view of his characters is as eccentric as the proverb; his filmmaking varies between hard-bitten realism and flashy melodrama. The whole is watchable but sometimes ridiculous. His actors do their best in difficult circumstances — but perhaps they felt anything was better than an ordinary Hollywood thriller without any originality at all.
The Air I Breathe
Cert: 15
