Breathe

(Mauro Lanari) "«(I can't) Breathe»": white writer Doug Simon’s screenplay had already made the Hollywood Black List in 2019, before the hashtag stirred public conscience" (Massimo Causo). Stefon Bristol turns it into his second feature, where the dystopian clash between the Black community and Caucasian America becomes a home (bunker) invasion movie in which Malcolm X’s biography is read on a post-apocalyptic Earth reduced to 5% oxygen. Ecumenical ending; I can't imagine how much worse the other 2019 screenplays must have been.

There isn't anything desperately wrong with this film. The actors try, on the whole successfully, in terms of honourably representing their profession. Unfortunately, though, the material they've been given to work with is just plain awful. Here we have the half-millionth presentation of a dystopian red-grey dusty future following an environmental catastrophe. Cue lots of tediously tired survivalist stuff with just about every conceivable hackneyed cliché and trope picked off the shelves and stuck in. Zero originality - 100% derivative. Just to add icing on the cake, there's a lot of messaging crudely pasted onto it. Well worth avoiding.