Review: Bringing Out the Dead

Nic Cage (looking like he hasn’t slept in two decades) plays a burned-out insomniac paramedic, roaming the scum-infested NY streets somewhat similarly to a certain psycho cab driver I could name. He’s haunted by the ghost of a girl he failed to save, and in fact, has had a particularly bad run lately. He needs to save someone, soon. In fact, he needs to get fired, and despite poor performance and absences, his boss (Arthur J. Nascarella) just won’t let him go, because he is apparently needed. And so he drives. He’s accompanied at varying points by John Goodman (who tries to get through the shift by thinking about his next meal), a sermonising Ving Rhames (who woos a female dispatcher and treats a resuscitation as a religious experience), and Tom Sizemore…who likes to beat people up for shits and giggles. Into Cage’s life comes Patricia Arquette, whose father Cage transports to hospital, but whose prognosis looks especially poor. Arquette, it seems has fallen in with creepy, insinuating drug lord Cliff Curtis, and Cage feels compelled to do something for this young woman. Marc Anthony plays a hobo with massive drug issues, who is constantly turning up at the hospital. Meanwhile, Queen Latifah and a certain director have voice cameos as dispatchers.

Nightmarish, hyper real 1999 paramedic drama is not the greatest film in the career of Martin Scorsese (“Goodfellas”, “Taxi Driver”, “Raging Bull”, “The Aviator”, “Gangs of New York”, “Hugo”), but it is probably one of his more entertaining ones, albeit still really bleak. The allusions to the overrated but memorable “Taxi Driver” are pretty strong, which makes one wish Scorsese would find something original to say. Cage is like a non-violent Travis Bickle, Goodman is in the Peter Boyle role of the sage co-worker, Arquette is the girl who needs to be ‘saved’, Curtis plays the pimp (here a drug dealer, but he sure talks like a velvety pimp), and the scenes between Cage and boss Nascarella (pretty funny) are only a bee’s dick different from a taxi service.

The Arquette character really isn’t all that interesting, nor does Arquette play her any more interesting than beige wallpaper, as usual. Being Cage’s wife at the time didn’t inspire any major acting sparks between them, let alone a great deal of sexual/romantic chemistry. That said, the film still plays out mostly engrossingly, Cage is definitely well-cast, and the supporting cast is top-notch, notably Rhames, Sizemore (who is truly frightening yet darkly humorous), and Goodman, as three paramedics with varying philosophies on life and varying degrees of sanity. Latino singer Anthony sure is an interestingly weird presence, too, and barely recognisable. Typical Scorsese R&B/rock soundtrack is fine, and although using dreaded colour filters/gels, the cinematography by Robert Richardson (“Platoon”, “Born on the 4^th of July”, “JFK”) is pretty damn gorgeous, perhaps among the best of its very colourful type. Best of all, unlike “Taxi Driver” (which is probably a better film overall), the ending isn’t an insulting, incendiary cop-out, it’s a little more upbeat. Not surprisingly, the screenplay is by “Taxi Driver” scribe Paul Schrader, working from a novel by real-life former New York paramedic Joe Connelly.

Rating: B-