Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

Different vibe... Struck a cord with me
This movie had a fantastically different vibe that struck or cord with me, though I wouldn't recommend this to my mother. Definitely a certain type of feel that a certain kind of film watchers will enjoy. It's dark, gritty, wierd, off-beat, graphic...

Scorsese really gets the best out of his actors (in most any movie he directs), and Nicolas Cage delivers an excellent performance. His ambulance driver is frazzled, frantic, frustrated, half-way insane, and not sure if he is dreaming or awake. Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, and John Goodman are wonderfully alive and vibrant supporting characters. Patricia Arquette really nails her role as the central female character.

This was a movie that for me, the sum was greater than it's parts (which were great already!). The cinematography is unbelievable. It is beautifully shot. And it has that intangible, that something extra that made it stay with me.

So I really enjoyed it. It's dark and off-beat and quirky. Saying that, I'm really not sure who I would recommend this to. Some will love it (probably the minority) and most of you not so much.

Just awful
I can't imagine the impulse people seem to have to praise this film, other than pure contrariness. There is: no plot; no character development (exactly where is the "redemption"? In killing a man on life support?); nothing likeable; nothing affirmed, reaffirmed, changed, transformed. There's not even the relief of violence, and the comedy ("but she is a virgin!") is so threadbare as to be almost invisible.

I like Nicholas Cage. Some of his work, such as "8MM," has been unjustly overlooked. But this film has been *justly* overlooked.

Night work can be Hell, Mr.Scorsese!
What is particularly compelling about this Martin Scorsese jolter is that,though I do not by any means consider this the best work I have seen him do,nor the best acting cast ever assembled,BRINGING OUT THE DEAD is still his one film that I remember vividly and have taken it to heart.WHY?
From 1977 to 1980 I worked a stressful inner city job that required me to work the night shift.I had to leave it after three years because my mental,emotional and physical had been forced to extend themselves way beyond their limits and capabilities.Sleeping was difficult and staying awake was even tougher,and reality became unreal!
Such is the overwhelmed,over taxed daily life of ambulance driver Frank Pierce portrayed by Nicholas Cage in BRINGING OUT THE DEAD.Pierce has ,for five long years,been doing this night work in New York City.Every night the ER's are overcrowded.He often responds to calls of the exact same people every night.He drinks and eats crap and is haunted by the faces of those whom he has not been able to save during his tenure as a paramedic.His partners played by John Goodman,Ving Rhames and Tom Sizemore are also in various living comatose states.Goodman is bored and hoping for promotion;Rhames uses the time to flirt with prostitutes and play games as a faith healer;and Tom Sizemore has checked out long ago and wants to kill the patients rather than save them.
On one distress call,Frank meets Mary (Patricia Arquette) whose father has flatlined way beyond help,yet is revived and kept agonizingly alive.This film follow 48 hours in the exhausted and twisted lives of these people as they confront ghosts real or imagined.There is one scene where a drug dealer is impaled on a metal fence,but is totally cognizant which is the most grisly and bizarre scene in this film.
As a film,it borders somewhat on cliche and the dialogue is not particularly stellar.The film checks in at 2 hours, but feels way longer.Still, there is enough of Scorsese's flare for the dramatic as he portrays the unhealthy night life of "the City that gets to you."
I don't know about the city,but I Do know that working night shift can be the single most alone experience that a human being can ever have!