MovieChat Forums > The Air I Breathe (2008) Discussion > The stupidest thing about this movie...

The stupidest thing about this movie...


Had to be the bank robbery. The guy shows up with no getaway vehicle and no mask. Then we assume he's in and out in under 4 minutes since the cops didn't show up yet. Then he gets away on foot. Then he steals the pizza bike after getting hit by the car...

Then by the time he's reached the end of the block the police already have him cornered and his escape route blocked off? What if he went down another street? Then he goes into the building, gets on the rooftop, and ALREADY the police have snipers in place and choppers overhead. WTF?!?!?!? Seriously!

Since when have the police been able to mobilize so quickly and converge on a single bank robber with no hostages? It was so stupid and contrived I was convinced it had to be a fake-out dream sequence or something until the movie just kept on going and I started to hate it because no way would things happen like that. It was all just a silly way for Geller's character to end up with the money at the end. That one scene just ruins the rest of the movie for me.

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Minus Los Angeles, it takes AT LEAST 45 minutes to fully mobilize a SWAT team. I've been on one in Eastern PA for the past 5 years. That scene was totally crap.

Why did they even run tape across the road? The guy doing that, he's called "A target."

Get a couple of guys to cover that side of the road. Their bullets would stop him better than a piece of yellow plastic tape he could push aside.

Crap, crap, crap. A sloppy writing to boot.

And as I alluded to in another posting, WHY DID THEY EVEN NEED TO KILL HIM????

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I got one. Not sure if you guys noticed it, but this was the point at which gave up on the movie and just started laughing out loud. WHen fraser takes sara michelle gellar to his house and is tuckin her into his bed, he steps up on his bed with his shoes on and poses with her in his arms (like a captain morgan commercial) and then slowly lowers her into the bed while still holding the ridiculous pose. watch it again and watch that nonsense

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lmao i saw that too. i mean NOBODY steps on their own bed with their shoes on...cooome ooooooonnn. i could understand bending one knee onto the bed to brace hisself but a dirty ass shoe?! lol.


---
"the whole world's on fire, isn't it?"

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He did not see the bed coming either!

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These and other points made about the flaws in the story of this film are all valid. However, for me the major flaw was that the whole film came of as contrived and completely unbelievable. The perfomances were passable but the direction and production were SERIOUSLY flawed. The sound of the dialogue was so low as to be inaudible at times while the soundtrack was at a very loud volume. I applaud the writers for having a good message but the telling of it left a lot to be desired. I also think that it's HILARIOUS that people are comparing this movie to 'Crash'. This movie seemed a parody of human emotion while 'Crash' dealt with how we treat our fellow man. For the most part the characters in this movie all had selfish motivations for their actions (YES...Even Bacon's character) while in 'Crash' the focus was more on overcoming selfish motivation. I know that all of the 'Buffy' fans will far from agree with me but this movie, message aside, was pretty poorly done in almost every aspect.

Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too. - Voltaire

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I know that all of the 'Buffy' fans will far from agree with me but this movie, message aside, was pretty poorly done in almost every aspect.

no...i love buffy and this movie was still ridiculous.

"Pepe, show me on the puppet were the puppet touched you"

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I stand corrected and thank you for showing me that there are other 'Buffy' (as I DID like it) fans out there that will admit that this movie was poorly conceived.

"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too." - Voltaire

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The most ridiculous part of this movie was when Whitaker walks into a shady underground betting club and bets 50000 bucks on a fixed horse race and pays with his credit card. That was even worse than the bank robbery. I can't believe Whitaker accepted this silly script.

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[deleted]

Think about the Free Flying Miles he gets! Then it is totally believable. BTW, FW is always good as a screw up, mumbling idiot.

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I thought it was pretty stupid that Sorrow (aka Trista) didn't go to the cops or the FBI or something. I mean, he wasn't keeping her a prisoner. She witnessed him shoot someone in cold blood and he was a crime boss, I'm sure the FBI would of loved to have her testify against him and they could of moved her some place safe.

This movie was pretty whack and I also love Buffy.

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Why was Garcia so mad at him anyway? It was his 50k to lose and since he used his credit card Garcia obviously got his money.

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There were many scenes that bugged me, such as ones people already mentioned on this thread. I thought some scenes, like with Forest Whitaker, were dream sequences since they were so silly. As the movie went on, I see we were supposed to take those scenarios seriously.

One that got on my nerves what when Fingers told Trista she was pregnant. Then he implied he was going to make her get an abortion so she could continue making him money with her pop singer tour.

Her reaction is to curl up in bed and start boo hooing as if she is totally powerless. Basically giving up having her baby with Pleasure because Fingers said so. Mothers around the world, throughout history have done truly herotic things to protect their babies and children. With a lot less resources and power than Trista. She's in a darn hospital after all. Why not start plotting how to ask for help from hospital workers.

It's not like Fingers could buy off or kill every single nurse, doctor, intern, orderly, candy striper, janitor, hospital administrator, social worker, police person, patient or visitor in the whole place. Any given day as a patient, Trista would interact with any of these people, no matter how closely Fingers goons kept an eye on her.



No two persons ever watch the same movie.

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Well, to be fair, lots of women show heroism when it comes to their babies, But lots of other women have abortions without giving it much of a thought. Perhaps Trista was somewhere in the middle?

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RobAd2
But lots of other women have abortions without giving it much of a thought.


This is a bold lie. Perpetuated by propagandists, most likely male. No flesh and blood woman anywhere on planet earth ever takes the decision of her personal abortion lightly.

No matter how many sexist, misogynistic words are written to say otherwise.

Even if a woman doesn't share your beliefs about abortion, it's still a serious medical procedure that has as much risk of death as any surgery. It's like saying, women don't give much thought to medical equipment being rammed into her body. It's no biggie.



No two persons ever watch the same movie.

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Sheesh, Ok, you win. But keep in mind:

No two women experience abortion the same way...

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I have to agree...the idea of a guy walking to a bank, ALONE, and thinking he can get away with that and yes, what was he thinking going to the roof of the building...just made himself a sitting duck.

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whittaker has a good job, made money, and lived well enough.

But did you see how happy he was? fraser tells him that he had to risk everything to know. So now he knew !!

same with all the characters, all flawed !! Like fraser's character, they all knew what was coming, but still went ahead anyways....

thats life

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Not a documentary folks. It's a work of fiction.

The only thing stupid is watching fiction expecting it to be a treatise on what the actual world is like.


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A work of fiction can be well done (The godfather I & II, Ladri di biciclete, Shawshank's redemption, Citizen Kane, Contact and a lot of etc.), without VERY STUPID things like we find in this movie.

First, betting that money in an ILLEGAL place with a credit card?

Then, what most surprises me is that a college graduate would need to ROB A BANK to pay a debt of 40 K U$ (he was eager to bet 10 K U$ at the begining, so the max amount of the loan would be 40K).

And the modern slavery thing is just stupid again. A noram agent-star contract (that is about a % of the earnings of the star) can be turned into a slavery contract?

Fingers seemed like a middle-leve thug, not someone who could beat the local police, less the FBI, for a start (she was a witness of murder, she could even get witness protection for her and the baby, in a very extreme case).

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You seem to have completely overlooked--or to have not understood--"The only thing stupid is watching fiction expecting it to be a treatise on what the actual world is like."



http://rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies

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What about the movies I mentioned as example?
Did they need to put VERY STUPID things on the screen? To insult the intelligence of the viewers so badly?

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I suppose you can't parse things outside of the paradigm that departures from what you believe to be true of the actual world are stupid.

I'm not sure why you can't parse things outside of that paradigm though.

The first step would be realizing that what makes fiction fiction in the first place is that it shows something, some "as if representation," that isn't the same as real world facts.



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Even accepting the nosense of betting a lot in an ILLEGAL house you didn't know personally.

How would you have to 'parse' the fact that a college graduate (at least is what is understood from a guy who studied very hard since childhood) would have robbing a bank as the only option?

Even in a 3er world country, a college graduate would not need to rob a bank for a debt of 40 K U$. The character in the movie was not a party-man, a gambler, or a womaniser. How come he would be in such awful situation that a debt of 40K U$ would leave him so desperate?

And again, how come the movies I mentioned as example, despite being fiction, did not need these stupid scenarios to become great movies? Why do you refuse to answer that?
How come you suppose that very stupid scenarios are a prerequisite for movies, when I showed you examples where such stupidity is not showed?

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Re the college graduate having robbing a bank as the only option, you feel that is stupid because it doesn't match or reflect what you would say is true of the real world, right? You'd say that in the real world, college graduates would have many options other than robbing banks, and so wouldn't need to, or wouldn't choose to rob a bank. So that's why you'd say that showing one as needing to or as choosing to rob a bank is thus stupid, right?

(The above isn't an endorsement of cribera-1's account of the plot, by the way, but for what I'm getting at, we can assume it's a good account.)




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A person with college education, with a solid job (broker), single, living a modest lifestyle (unlikely to be in heavy debt), and with NO CRIMINAL EXPERIENCE, got a 40 K debt and his only option is to rob a bank instead of getting a modest loan?

A guy who didn't piggytail the safest bet of his customers, willing to rob a bank?

If that's not an absurd scenario, what it is?

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So again, it seems that you're saying that the reason that it's stupid is because it doesn't match what you'd say is the case in the actual world. Is this correct or not?



http://rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies

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It´s not about my view, it´s about COMMON SENSE, LOGIC101.

A college graduate with, working in a solid company (who had customers like the future-viewing guy) as a broker (they tend to earn pretty good money), who lives a modest lifestyle (so, he's unlikely to be in heavy debt).

This same guy doesn't have criminal records, neither tendencies (he never tried to pigtail his sure-bet customer).

And this guy, for just 40 K U$, gets in a scenario where his only option is to rob a bank?
I know several people who were in need of more money than 40 K U$, in one or another point of his/her life, and none of them needed to rob a bank to get such amount of money.

It´s just absurd, there is no way to rationalize it. It would be the opposite of your claim, it would take a very personal suspension of disbelief to take robbing a bank as the only option for such character.

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I'll take that part out (re "your view"), because it's not that important re what I'm getting at:

It seems that you're saying that the reason that it's stupid is because it doesn't match what is the case (and we could add "per common sense" or "Logic 101") in the actual world. Is this correct or not?




http://rateyourmusic.com/~JrnlofEddieDeezenStudies

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