The Air I Breathe

Like a series of unattributed quotations from an undergraduate essay on Zen philosophy backed by a  marathon of Emo pop videos, this pompous, concept-driven debut from American director Jieho Lee is about as hollow and doom-harbouring as an empty coffin.

Smitten by the current vogue for expansive, interwoven narratives and large, star-studded casts, the stifling confines of attainable human experience have led writer Bob DeRosa to endow Brendan Fraser’s unflappable chop-sockey debt collector with the ability to see into the future, then blithely moves on to a sub-plot involving an ER doctor (Kevin Bacon) who is trying to save the life of a dying woman (Julie Delpy), but can’t because she has a blood type that hasn’t been discovered yet. The message the film appears to be hammering home is that everything in life, no matter how trivial, inevitably leads to abject misery; and when you’ve sat through this film, boy, you’ll know it.