A film review by Nick Stewart Copyright © 1999 Nick Stewart

Death. If you ever want to strike a serious chord with an audience, lay out the topic of death. The termination of life is just about the most serious card that a storyteller can play, and Martin Scorsese uses it as his trump card in his most recent work, Bringing Out the Dead. Unfortunately, Scorsese doesn't bring quite enough to the table to turn this movie into the cinematic powerhouse that perhaps he might have wanted it to be.

Other than perhaps doctors and morticians, there are few people that live in the borderline realm of life-and-death quite like paramedics. Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage), is one such individual, a veteran paramedic of five years who works the night streets of New York city in the early 90's. Death, dying and pain is a constant of Frank's existance, as he deals with emergency calls amidst the hellish grit that is New York. Dealing with this constant cycle of pain and death is not something that most people can handle, but Frank's motto for sanity is "Help others and you help yourself". Saving lives keeps him on a sort of high, giving him a sense of immortality and helping him to block out the trauma of witnessing human suffering on a nightly basis. Unfortunately, Frank hasn't saved anybody for months, and his bridge to sanity starts crumbling. He starts going crazy, and becomes haunted by the vision of an asthmatic girl he was unable to save. Bringing Out the Dead is the story of Frank as he lives through two days and three nights with this unending guilt and seeming inability to save anybody hanging over his head.

Scorsese, as always, has done a terrific job at setting the movie's atmosphere. The bulk of the movie is seen at night, and even then the streets are painted with the flashing red of the ambulance's lights. He tries to make you see New York through Frank's delusional eyes by speeding up the film, slowing it down and basically making a trip in the ambulance feel like a hallucinogenic documentary. The movie is down-and-dirty, making New York seem like a vision of hell on earth between its drug wars, gunshot wounds, packed-to-capacity emergency rooms, car accidents and prostitution. Needless to say, this movie isn't exactly for the faint of heart.

I don't particularly care for Nicolas Cage as an actor, but his style seems somewhat more fit for a guy losing his mind than any other role that I've seen him in. At times, he seems way, way too over-the-top, but I suppose that's fitting for somebody losing his grip on sanity. Frank's partners are also pretty over-the-top, and steal just about every scene that they're in. Tom Sizemore as a whacked-out danger-loving psycho is fun to watch, as is Ving Rhames as the Bible-thumping womanizer. Marc Anthony is also worth mentioning as a completely insane street weirdo, perpetually on the quest for death and a glass of water.

Between seeing Fight Club, American Beauty and Bringing Out the Dead, I have seen more misery, stress and job dissatisfaction in the past week than I have in an entire season of Jerry Springer. The difference between Bringing Out the Dead and the first two, however, is that it feels a lot more real. The subject matter of an ordinary guy slowly going crazy due to his inability to deal with death is a lot more believable than, say, a guy who joins an anarchistic club (Fight Club), or a guy who quits his job as an ad exec and takes up pot and a job as a fry jockey at a burger joint (American Beauty). But does it make a better movie? I would say no. Just because we can connect ourselves easily to the main character does not mean that we can really care about every little thing that happens to him. Perhaps there should have been more plot substance than "he's going crazy, watch him as he tries to save people". While it does strike home the feeling that life is precious and that paramedics are admirable for doing what they do, you can only take these points for so long without wanting something more substantial, more satisfying from the movie.

For all my whining, Bringing Out the Dead does carry a powerful and somewhat moving message. Death is a thing not to be trifled with, but rather to be respected and sometimes accepted rather than feared. This is what I would call a thematic movie: a film driven by a theme or metaphor rather than a solid plot. Martin Scorsese does what he can with this theme, and sometimes to great effect. Unfortunately, a few good scenes and some decent acting can't capture the greatness of some of his earlier films like Taxi Driver and Goodfellas. It's a decent movie to watch, but if you're looking for a good way to spend your hard-earned money, go see Fight Club and wait for Bringing Out the Dead to hit video.

	Running Time: 118 Min | Rated R | US Release: October 22nd | More >>

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