Inhale

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.

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.

What would YOU do, seems to be the central question here. In America, there's a waiting list for organs... And it's a VERY long one. Your daughter needs one desperately, and thanks to a certain illicit trade going on in Mexico, you may have the opportunity of saving her life. But there's a catch... you may have to suspend your moral compass, and turn a blind eye to conduct which is inhumane to say the least. Could you live with yourself knowing what had happened, if it meant your child got a second chance?

I am being deliberately oblique here, as there are secrets I would dare not reveal. But sufficed to say, many people would come away from this film thinking that they'd made a different choice to the main character... Me included. But I could understand why he went along the path he did, and I respected that. I'll stop there, and just add that this was a competent thriller for the most part... nothing special but with enough action and drama to last you until you reach the finish line.

This is the point where EVERYTHING that has gone before is overshadowed by the key dilemma. Like one of the Choose Your Own Adventure books I used to like so much, it is a real head-scratcher. Sometimes, there are no easy answers... 6/10

Fast paced movie with a good plot.The movie talks about the illegal part of heart transplantation and how they do it. the casts fit the role exactly and the movie doesn't lose its objective or story anywhere. The emotional part in the movie is touching. the movie enters the story in the very first scene itself. The scenes are properly edited and there is no confusion in any of the scenes. The movie catches its speed once the hero enters the Mexico. From there on the furious story of illegal heart transplantation begins. The hero too goes there to find a heart for his daughter who ails from serious asthma problems.She needs an immediate transplantation. But the hero faces a great piece of challenge, Ethics. In the last scene , he faces his own moral values against saving his daughter. Watch it. Its worth watching.Its actually good!

The basic premise of this film does not give reason for very high expectations --- dedicated parents with child in distress, how far are they willing to go, and what do they need to do in order to save their child. In this case, the child needs an organ transplant, and as the usual channels do not seem to be able to save her, the parents need to get creative about procuring a suitable organ in some other way.

This is fertile breeding ground for loads of cheese, contrived story lines, and emotional vignettes. And even though you can see the end coming from quite a bit away, and even the movie isn't entirely free of cheese, it's a dark and gritty movie that explores its subject without too much sentimentality and isn't afraid to look where standard Hollywood fare might not.

The solid story is helped along by a strong cast led by a great Mulroney (who seems to be expanding his range with every work I see him in), and it pains me to say that even Diane Kruger (whom I otherwise enjoy to slam) turns in an excellent performance, as does the interesting supporting cast (Arquette appears somewhat underused, it wouldn't be surprising if a good deal of her material ended up on the cutting room floor).

At some point in the film you realize that no matter which way things go, the ending won't be a very happy one. To me, that is where I see the true strength of this movie, and I find it much more important than the particular road the story ends up taking (and which seems to have made many viewers rather unhappy judging from the discussion boards). To be sure, I like the ending, and much prefer it over its conceivable alternatives, but the real point remains that our protagonist had arrived at a situation that no longer admitted a 'happy' resolution.

Definitely worth seeing.