Review of Bringing Out the Dead (1999) by Daniel P — 10 Nov 2012

Second viewing, ten years after the first, and believe it or not I find this movie worse than I did the first time - and, sadly, I actually like the premise: a paramedic who's starting to feel the ghosts of his calling catch up to him and who's breaking down as a result.

I see why Cage seemed like the right choice - he's played the worn-down type since Leaving Las Vegas - but he's so unbearably flat that I can't cheer for him. He's a passenger in his own life, and few to none of the problems in the film get resolved, which can work sometimes, but here it's just clunky.

There's a half hour in the middle that's almost compelling, but the hump at the beginning, the mad veering off in all directions and the abrupt ending overwhelm the good stuff. The best part for me was John Goodman, but he quits the job about 30 minutes in and we never see him again.

I will credit Scorsese for the gritty night-time style; I see how he was trying to go back to Taxi Driver. But layering over this film was rambunctious Rolling Stones and Clash tracks didn't do the action any favours, it just jarred the viewer, over and over, with little to no gain from it.

Everyone lays an egg at some point in their career, I guess. This one's Scorsese's. It comes off like a half-baked episode of ER.