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Martin Scorsese comes home to the mean streets of New York with
Bringing Out the Dead, the hyperkinetic tale of an ambulance driver (Nicolas Cage) on three sleep-deprived, adrenaline-fueled nights amongst the dead and dying of the city. Less a coherent narrative than a mood piece, the film is a welcome return to form for Scorsese, who takes Joe Connelly's memoir and spins it into a slightly surreal, darkly comic tale of one man's redemption. Frank Pierce (Cage) is a man who feels impotent in his job as an EMT--less a lifesaver, he's more of a grief mop as he sardonically puts it, bearing witness to the pain and suffering of others. Haunted by the specter of a young homeless girl, something stirs in Frank when he meets Mary (Patricia Arquette), the daughter of a heart attack victim Frank attends to. In a world where human interaction usually means putting someone on a stretcher, or bantering frenetically with his coworkers, Frank seems headed for certain physical and nervous collapse.
Scorsese, screenwriter Paul Schrader (of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull), and cinematographer Robert Richardson put a vivid spin on the New York of the early 90s with amazing visual flair and keen, economical storytelling. The film practically pulses with life, and hits the perfect note of ragged exhaustion. Cage, after a recent career slump, turns in an exceptional performance, by turns manic and weary. In fact, this is one of the best casts ever assembled for a Scorsese film: in addition to the quietly effective Arquette, there are great performances by John Goodman, Ving Rhames, and Tom Sizemore as Cage's ambulance partners, as well as Mary Beth Hurt (as an ER doctor), pop star Marc Anthony (as a drug addict), and especially Cliff Curtis (as a drug dealer who winds up in an unusual scrape). It's not a masterpiece in the vein of Taxi Driver, but Bringing Out the Dead ranks as a stunning Scorsese joyride. --Mark Englehart
The prospect of Martin Scorsese's teaming up with Paul Schrader-his screenwriter on "Taxi Driver" and other pictures-for a return to New York is a hugely enticing one. This time, the means of transport is an ambulance rather than a taxi, and the hero is a weary paramedic by the name of Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage). Frank keeps losing more patients than he saves; indeed, his world has gone into decline before the story even begins, and Cage's dour, dark-eyed resignation sits uneasily with the restive, high-energy look of the film. It's not so much plotted as peopled with recurring figures, both alive and dead: a practicing lunatic, a young asthma sufferer who dies in Frank's arms, and a numb ex-junkie named Mary Burke (Patricia Arquette), who just won't leave him alone. Then there are the other paramedics, played by John Goodman, Tom Sizemore, and Ving Rhames. Of these, only Rhames takes the movie by the throat and finds the black farce within it, mocking the somnolence (and the lyrical voice-overs) that prevails elsewhere. This could only be a Scorsese film; nobody else can get off on the stimuli of a city with quite such panache. As for the identity of the city, that's another matter; few New Yorkers will recognize the round-the-clock hellhole in which the picture dwells. Stuck in the days of "Taxi Driver," it's more of a period piece than a contemporary drama; could Scorsese ever imagine streets that were not mean? Would we want him to? -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006
The New Yorker
DVD ~ Bill Cosby
DVD ~ Todd Field
by Paul Schrader
DVD ~ Nicolas Cage
DVD ~ Nicolas Cage
DVD ~ Nicolas Cage
