BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (Paramount/Touchstone) Starring: Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, Marc Anthony. Screenplay: Paul Schrader, based on the novel by Joe Connelly. Producers: Scott Rudin and Barbara De Fina. Director: Martin Scorsese. MPAA Rating: R (profanity, violence, drug use, adult themes) Running Time: 118 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
If the opening minutes of BRINGING OUT THE DEAD start to look very familiar, you're not alone -- even Martin Scorsese agrees with you. The story opens "in the early 1990s" with EMS paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) beginning the first of three consecutive chaotic shifts, and at the end of his rope. His night shifts cruising the streets of New York City are filtered through red lights; his voiceover narration, scripted by Paul Schrader (from Joe Connelly's novel), reveals a soul in turmoil. Fueled only by alcohol and coffee, haunted by the image of a girl he couldn't save, Frank is ready to snap. "There's a correlation to TAXI DRIVER, there's no doubt," Scorsese comments in the press notes, which admission can only inspire a sarcastic, "No, really?" For a while, you suspect the film should be called AMBULANCE DRIVER.
Scorsese ultimately takes BRINGING OUT THE DEAD somewhere quite different, which is both a blessing and a disappointment. Much of the film is spent on the day-to-day -- or, in this case, night-to-night -- life of the paramedics, and on that level it's often fascinating and brutally hilarious. Frank's three riding partners provide a variety of perspectives on the way people respond to the stresses of the occupation. Larry (John Goodman) remains distant, focused either on his next meal or the private medical response company he plans to open some day; Marcus (Ving Rhames) turns emergency calls into opportunities to do a little of the Lord's work, notably in a wonderful scene where he a resuscitation in a Goth nightclub becomes an impromptu tent revival meeting; Tom Walls (Tom Sizemore) turns into a wild animal ready to beat the hell out of his truck or a frustrating patient, whichever happens to be at hand. Even the trips into the Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy emergency room -- a barely-controlled bedlam that would send even the "ER" cast screaming for the hills -- pound home the nightmare of the job. When Scorsese and cinematographer Robert Richardson keep their eyes trained on the kinetic, frenetic world of Pierce and his cohorts, BRINGING OUT THE DEAD has the darkly comic vibe of M*A*S*H, providing entertaining (if occasionally unnerving) insight into a violent world where the only sane response is to go a little insane.
There is, however, a backbone to this story, if not an exceptionally strong one. BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is ultimately a redemption tale, in which Frank longs to escape from the feeling that every call is hopeless, and that he no longer has the power to save anyone. Much of that story focuses on his relationship with Mary (Patricia Arquette), a woman whose father Frank revives after a cardiac arrest. Frank becomes obsessed with Mary, rescuing her from a relapse into drug use and becoming her personal liaison on her father's condition. His relationship with Mary should shine a narrative light into his soul, yet Frank's personal crisis never becomes nearly as vivid as the world in which he exists. Cage delivers a performance that is alternately wild-eyed and catatonic, a frustrating pastiche of previous Cage roles instead of a distinct character of its own. The moments when Frank isn't on the job, when he's trying to find some semblance of peace and normalcy, should be BRINGING OUT THE DEAD's emotional anchor. More often, they leave you wondering when someone's going to get back in an ambulance so the real action can continue.
Scorsese and Schrader really miss the mark in the film's final minutes, when Frank's epiphany becomes a depressingly obvious combination of Glinda-the-Good-Witch dialogue and purifying white light. It's all well and good that Scorsese and Shrader claim they've "a little mellower now," and that 25 years after TAXI DRIVER they've opted for something a bit less bleakly pessimistic. The 1999 model Travis Bickle didn't necessarily need to be an armed sociopath, but his actions still needed to draw us into the way one man deals with New York's grim underworld. There's plenty of visual gusto to BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, and there are plenty of wildly entertaining episodes to keep you watching. It's just hard not to wish for a personality half as intensely memorable as Bickle to pull it all together. Whenever Frank's introspections take center stage, you need to keep rousing yourself to ask, "Are you talkin' to me?"
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 hold the Bickles: 6.
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