 | Bringing Out the Dead Starring: Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Tom Sizemore, Ving Rhames, Mary Beth Hurt, Marc Anthony |
Ambulances with screaming sirens and flashing lights speed through the steaming streets of nighttime Manhattan as overworked paramedics come face to face with death and the dying every hour of their graveyard shift in this grim tale. The dark and seamy underside of New York City is filmed as only Scorsese can capture it. Paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) is so burned out and haunted by personal ghosts that his sanity is hanging by a thread. Too many bodies, broken lives, blood, and overtime. His partners are no better. Each one of these men deals with their surreal existence in different yet equally strange ways. A terrific cast supports Cage. Tom Sizemore, John Goodman, Patricia Arquette, and Ving Rhames bring strong performances to the story. The screenplay, written by Paul Schrader, follows 56 hours in the life of Frank Pierce. Two days and three nights of all circles in Dante's Hell. Joe Connelly, author of the novel, once said, "My book will do for Manhattan Paramedics what 'Taxi Driver' did for the city's cabs." Who could be more perfect than Martin Scorsese to make the film? This is a New York that Scorsese knows. His scenes are, at times, brilliant. Make no mistake this is a dark, moody and, at times, fascinating film to view. The subterranean levels of Manhattan are horrifying yet compelling thanks to Scorsese's razor sharp direction. The fatal flaw is the inability of the audience to connect with the characters. To put it simply, they are too bizarre, including Frank Pierce (Cage). Forget motivation, these guys are nuts! Only Patricia Arquette comes across as a complex, vulnerable, sane human. By the end of the film, few in the audience really care if Frank has found redemption or not. His ghosts don't get through. Scorsese has concentrated on making the scenes too vivid and his reality becomes unreal. The film suffers from this mistake. The fine line between truth and fantasy become blurred and, in this case, boring. His characters are just too "whacked out" to make a connection. Scorsese's mise-en-scenes are intriguing but his failure to link the characters with the viewers is an error that is difficult to overcome. This film has so much going for it , yet Scorsese and Schrader pushed it too far over the edge. The original story of spiritual collapse and redemption gets lost. The only moral one gets is this: If you get hurt in Manhattan, DON'T call a Paramedic! |