Inhale

When I started watching this movie I had my doubts,due to lack of reviews and even rating...so I expected just another "below average" movie just to kill my time.

But from the very beginning I got the feeling it wouldn't be an indifferent film!This is a movie about ethics in its actual sense.Not just about religious or political debates. It should stimulate every user who likes to think.

It has action,drama and even politics,all given to you in a way that not only won't bore you,but will actually make you want it to last a little bit longer...At least that's what happened in my case and to all 4 persons I watched it with!

Acting was good as well.If this movie had a bigger budget and well-known cast would definitely have been a movie everyone would talk about!

If you like movies with both interesting plot and good direction,take my word and watch it.It won't let you down!

What would you do? Your daughter is about to die, your family is breaking apart and your wallet is big enough to afford a human life.

This is basically what this movie is about. As boring that this story starts it really changes fast to an affecting one for everybody who watches this movie. When life saving decisions all of the sudden fall into the hands of a father and a mother of an seriously ill child you should expect to see heartbreaking drama. If then heartless people get involved you should even expect some fireworks. This is basically what you get here.

I seriously recommend this movie to everybody who doesn't wanna see another softened Hollywood ballyhoo and instead likes to ask themselves questions about life and how they would react to certain decisions.

Somewhat in the same genre' as the film "Traffic" which takes the viewer into the extremely dark world of human trafficking of kidnapped children sold to pedophile clients, "Inhale" takes the viewer into the dark world of "no questions asked" human organ trafficking, sold into the medical black market.

There's no fooling around, fluff or frills in this film.

Right from the start, the viewer is plunged into a contorted realm of existence, faced with horrific choices that have to be made under the worst of imaginable circumstances.

Desperate parents, hoping against hope for a donor lung transplant, while their daughter is inching ever closer to death, faced with a seemingly illogical and unfair organ recipient listing system, realize that they have to resort to other "outside the box" options, immediately.

In the real world, this is a scenario that is all too familiar for countless thousands of parents, who, regardless of expense or effort needed, will travel to various clinics outside the USA, to save their children from otherwise certain death. To cater to this need, there are many parts of the world where, for the right price, the desperately needed organ(s) in question magically appear on demand to the highest bidder.

All things considered, this film does deliver a bone chilling dose of drama under duress, and then some.

The only part that I felt seemed to be a bit weak was the ending, which was tailored more to suit a politically correct message, rather than deliver a realistic rendering of what would actually happen in such circumstances.

Having said that, however, the casting and acting in this piece fit into this story like a hand to a glove. I had no trouble in suspending disbelief while viewing this film, as I personally have traveled around a bit and have seen first hand what this sort of scenario looks like.

I give the director a lot of credit for trying to deliver this view into a world mostly hidden from the general public, via this dramatic platform.

As previously suggested, this film is not for the squeamish or faint of heart.

Paul and Diane Stanton (Dermot Mulroney and Diane Kruger) are living a comfortable life in Santa Fe, New Mexico but conflicted with their daughter's stage four lung disease. After months of waiting on the national waiting list so their daughter could get a replacement, Paul discovers a friend, gubernatorial candidate James Harrison (Sam Shepard) has had an illegal heart transplant. Harrison agrees to tell Paul all he knows, which sends Paul to Tijuana to find a mysterious Dr. Navarro, the man behind the curtain of illegal organ transplants.

Organ transplants are just as dangerous and just as illegal as human trafficking, and can cause as much and more heartache. "Inhale" takes a regular family man and places him in war-torn Tijuana to try to save the life if his little girl using any means necessary, which makes you question his moral authority. Good films do just that, they make you think. Great films, however, leave you thinking.

Dermot Mulroney doesn't usually play the leading character but gives a tour-de-force performance here. He is beaten and bruised on his journey but does not give up and held my attention throughout. The beautiful Diane Kruger is equally as good but underused as his frantic wife, tending to be a sidelines character who never gets her due. Sam Shepard successfully plays a slick politician, and the entire Hispanic cast, including the equally slick Jordi Molla, hold their own.

The script has a few problems, mostly with explanation. Shepard's character's relationship to Mulroney's character is never quite explained. It appears they work together and are close, then suggests the opposite when Shepard is running for Governor. Kruger is underused, which takes away from much of "Inhale"'s potential. She is a fantastic actress but seeing her cry isn't enough. She's too good to be so one - dimensional, which suggests some of the film never made it off the cutting room floor.

James Newton Howard's soundtrack blends seamlessly into the background, becoming a character in itself as it differentiates New Mexico and Mexico. The ending is perhaps the biggest fault of the film. The choices Paul makes throughout takes him to a surgical room where he is faced with an incredibly difficult choice. When we discover which choice he made, we are made to think if it was right. If we never knew, that would have left us thinking long after the screen went black.

"Inhale" takes the organ trafficking debate head on, which is admirable. Yet the film isn't as good as the message it gets across.

The movie is generally good. I don't know why some reviewers have focused on the incredulity of the story. I think this movie makes a good rental. It is a bit of a hard viewing, not just because of some violence or sex but because of the overall subject matter itself. I thought that the director kept the focus on the story.

When I checked for the reviews I was surprised that it did not have very many reviews. I think the producers and director should be given some positive feedback because this movie did appear to deliver as a movie.

There are some intensely annoying loose ends. So ignore the first ten minutes. If it was not for this I would have given this movie 7 or even 8. Since the story was not cleaned up in the beginning it gets only 6 out of 10.