Full of junked-up monochrome monitors and junky dot matrix printers, Air is a tightly wound film that operates far better as a throwback to another era of science fiction films than as a modern statement concerning the genre. It is the story of two engineers at odds with their environment and each other as they face the difficult challenge of maintaining oxygen levels to a group of government-selected survivors in the near future with the hopes of building a future worth living on a destroyed earth.
Humanity has charred the earth. Only a few survivors remain in a hibernating status and it is up to two men to wake periodically and check to make sure the dwindling oxygen supply is still pumping into everybody’s sleeping units effectively. It is a brave new world where shadows and outdated machines rule.
Directed by Christian Cantamessa, Air amps up the claustrophobia as our two leads, Bauer (Norman Reedus) and Cartwright (Djimon Hounsou), awake from their sleeping chambers to perform their maintenance duties for a group of government selected individuals. We quickly realize that these two men and the survivors they are in charge of are way underground in heavily reinforced bunkers.
In Air the surviving population – driven almost to extinction by a nuclear war – has gone underground in order to wait out the toxic fallout and live to rebuild again after years of hibernation. This science fiction film doesn’t rely on slick production and, as it is strapped to almost a single setting due to its low budget, relies a lot on the imagination as it only provides sneak peeks at the world outside of the bunker. In that way, Air remains a desperate vehicle of self-included mayhem as the two men come to terms with the reality collapsing around them. Exactly what is illusion?
Cantamessa and co-writer Chris Pasetto have a really cool idea that develops into a psychological piece as Hounsou starts “seeing” things and chatting with Abby (Sandrine Holt), his girlfriend who is still in suspended animation. To him, she moves and walks alongside him. To Reedus, who relies on his partner to maintain the tech and his own sanity, she doesn’t exist. When the tools around them start breaking down, their own allegiance to the mission twist inside them and produce an unexpected showdown between what is immediate and what lies in the dark future.
Air is a film that, while never developing into an edge-of-your-seat thriller, works because of its insistence upon creating mood. From claustrophobia to paranoia, Cantamessa massages a lot of stressful pathos into his post-apocalyptic vision of the world. And while the film works best when the two engineers are battling the ratchet-fisted environment of broken-down tech and spooky chambers that lead to rather interesting places, it doesn’t disappoint as it morphs into a narrative of aggression.
Currently in limited release, Air provides plenty of moments for its two stars to resuscitate the future-shock motion pictures of the 1970s.
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some violence, language and sexual references
Runtime: 95 mins
Director: Christian Cantamessa
Writer: Christian Cantamessa, Chris Pasetto
Cast: Norman Reedus, Djimon Hounsou, Sandrine Holt
Genre: Sci-Fi | Thriller
Tagline: Two men. One task. Save humankind.
Memorable Movie Quote: "You've got no air"
Distributor: Vertical Enetrtainment
Official Site: http://air-movie.tumblr.com/
Release Date: August 21, 2015
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date: No details available.
Synopsis: In the last livable place on Earth, the two men tending to humanity's last hope are starting to lose their grip on their own sanity.
