Review of Bringing Out the Dead (1999) by Xgary X — 31 Dec 2010

Burned out paramedic Nicolas Cage deals with insomnia and oppressive guilt caused by losing one too many patients while doing his job in the New York twilight. Written by the scriptwriter responsible for Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and directed by Martin Scorsese, I was expecting a lot from this film but despite some interesting scenes I found it to be very disappointing.

Lacking any kind of focus or narrative momentum, it's little more than a series of unconnected events as Cage and a stream of sidekicks drive around and occasionally get splattered with blood like an unfunny version of Repo Man.

A little too self consciously wacky, it reminded me of the likes of MASH or Catch 22, representing night-time New York as a kind of crazed urban warzone complete with accompanying surrealities, but the fact is I didn't really connect to or care about any of the characters and without any real structure to frame them in, I was just plain bored a lot of the time.

There's little to complain about technically and the performances are all fine but for something that's supposed to be a comedy thriller, it fails in both departments.