DVD Review: Bringing Out The Dead



Describing Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out The Dead as a downbeat film is kinda like describing the Atlantic Ocean as damp. Bringing Out The Dead is tremendously downbeat and quite surreal. It is, in fact, downbeat and surreal enough to make Blue Velvet play like There's Something About Mary.

Yet, reviewers who describe the film as a thriller or an action film aren't really off the mark, either. There is action in the film. There is suspense and there are thrills along the way. It's just that there's a darkness to everything on the screen that nearly suffocates the film. Watching Bringing Out The Dead is often like being smothered.

That is probably intentional. If you're going to tell a story about a man who hates his life, who feels panicked and afraid at every turn, and who's haunted by his every decision, I don't suppose you'd want the story to come across lightly.

Bringing Out The Dead is the story of an NYC graveyard shift EMT named Frank Pierce (Nicholas Cage) who's on the verge of burning out disastrously. Frank hasn't been involved in a call that actually saved a life in months, and he's haunted by the memory of Rose, a young woman who died during his attempt to save her months ago. As the movie begins, Frank responds to a call for a heart attack victim who clearly wants to die. But it's Frank's job to keep him alive, so he does. The patient is transported to a crowded and inefficient hospital, where he's cardio-shocked seventeen times in a desperate attempt to preserve his life. The conflict between those who are unwillingly alive because of Frank's actions ... and those who'd still be enjoying life if only Frank had known what to do ... becomes too much. Something has got to give.

A number of the cards that Scorsese always has up his sleeve end up on the table, here... including flashy camera work, voice-over narration, and a pulsing pop music soundtrack that often actually carries the story rather than simply serving as a distraction. Martin Scorsese is one of our greatest living filmmakers, and even a middling work from him is going to be better than the best work of almost anyone else. Unfortunately for Scorsese fans, Bringing Out The Dead is sometimes little more than a middling Scorsese affair.

One problem is that Cage's performance often drags. Although it's appropriate that his character seem tired all of the time, there are also sequences where it just doesn't seem that he's learned his lines very well. Other scenes are shot and edited in a way that some viewers might find distracting. From the point of view of a midnight shift worker (as I myself am for seven days each month), I think a lot of what Scorsese has done in Bringing Out The Dead was artistically valid. Scenes speed up and slow down at random. Shots never seem to last for more than a minute or two, making it hard to stay focused. There's a dreamlike quality to everything here, with odd lighting and strange sound mixes in even the least surreal scenes. As a shift worker, I thought I understood what Scorsese was doing while I watched the film. If you've ever worked graveyard, you know that it often really seems like things are speeding up, slowing down and randomly distorting in the wee hours of the night. I recognized that, just as I recognized other little nods to the shift worker, such as the aluminum foil taped to Cage's bedroom windows. Other viewers, however, are more likely going to find some of these stylistic choices to be pure distraction.

Strong supporting performances by the rest of the cast help make up the difference. Patricia Arquette, I admit, is merely adequate as the daughter of the heart attack victim (and Frank's love interest). It's the other wacko EMT's and the New York late night street people who provide the action and the thrills along the way. Tom Sizemore plays Tom, a brutally indifferent ambulance driver … and Sizemore never fails to deliver the weirdness in hugely watchable doses. Singer and Actor Marc Anthony is also quite good here (really) as a dreadlocked suicidal headcase named Noel. Best of all, though, is Ving Rames as Marcus, the pseudo-gospel preaching, pimping and profiling playa who spends a kinetic Friday night driving Frank from call to call.

The movie seems to be at a loss with regard to exactly what Frank needs to put his ghosts and regrets behind him. Along the way he tries everything from doing his job well to trying to get fired ... everything from drinks to pills to impromptu IV cocktails ... and everything from reckless driving to meandering conversations. Frank seems to have come to the conclusion that his job is neither to prevent death, nor to hasten it, but simply to witness it. The actions he finally takes to bring closure to the lives and deaths that haunt him seem somewhat contrived and out of character, and the movie resolves everything with a sappy, conventional "hero-gets-the-girl" conclusion. As I said, this is neither Scorsese's best, nor most cohesive motion picture.

Nonetheless, it is still clearly the product of a movie maker who'd been honing his considerable skills for some 40 years by the time he made this picture. Scorsese is no slouch, and even this uneven and often messy movie still packs a great deal of punch. Cage steps up and delivers in certain critical scenes, and he sells Frank's weariness when it matters. Plus, it's simply impossible to take your eyes off this movie. It doesn't always make sense, but it never gets boring. It is, after all, Scorsese.

A Clip From Bringing Out The Dead

Dubbed in Spanish

Which Really Doesn't Make Make Much Difference:

  ¶ 3:22 AM