A huge disappointment.
Bringing Out the Dead (1999)
Runtime: 2 hrs 1 min
Synopsis: Martin Scorsese exhilaratingly adapts Joe Connelly's novel about Frank (Nicolas Cage), a paramedic working among the filth and mental desolation of New York City's Hell's Kitchen in the early 1990s. Lately he has been haunted by the visions of a beautiful 18 year-old girl whom he was unable... Martin Scorsese exhilaratingly adapts Joe Connelly's novel about Frank (Nicolas Cage), a paramedic working among the filth and mental desolation of New York City's Hell's Kitchen in the early 1990s. Lately he has been haunted by the visions of a beautiful 18 year-old girl whom he was unable to resuscitate. Soon after, another image begins to torment him, that of Mary (Patricia Arquette), a recovering drug addict who enters Frank's life when he attempts to save her father. His spiral into even further confusion is paralleled with his three driving partners: Larry (a boisterous John Goodman), whose advice to Frank is not to think about all the death and violence; Marcus (a scene-stealing Ving Rhames), a religious fanatic who uses his medical skills as propaganda for the Lord; and Walls (a maniacal Tom Sizemore), a loose cannon who has no sensible grounding whatsoever. In order to escape the madness that is consuming him, Frank asks, unsuccessfully, to be fired. He must ride out the nightmare, trying to redeem the lives of Rose, Mary, and himself in the process. Scorsese uses his camera to capture Frank's wavering mental state with tilted angles and fast-speed photography. In portraying the tormented Frank, Cage dives wholeheartedly into character, delivering another fiery performance. [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, Ving Rhames, John Goodman, Tom Sizemore
Screenwriter: Paul Schrader
Producer: Barbara De Fina, Scott Rudin
Composer: Elmer Bernstein
Reviews
Scorsese is married to a script that drags him down, keeps him from taking wing as a pure artist.
However muddled the story gets, Scorsese guarantees Bringing Out the Dead remains a pulsating trip.
It's another burnout role for Nicolas Cage, to which he brings his vast repertoire of grimaces and shuffles, as if he were variously impersonating a gargoyle on amphetamines and late Elvis on downers.
I don't recommend it, unless you care to see the best Nicolas Cage performance in several years, or some more of Scorcese's brilliant camera work.
Everyone looks dead and they speak as if they live in a nightmarish dreamworld. Well, they do.
Give it to Martin Scorsese to keep coming back and hitting one out of the park.
Bringing Out the Dead fails on almost every level at which Taxi Driver succeeded.
Um filme sobre solidão, medo e angústia que jamais fornece respostas fáceis para os dolorosos dilemas de seus personagens.
The auteur has definitely left his distinctive mark, but too seldom and too narrowly.
A riveting drama about a New York City paramedic who is experiencing a harrowing spiritual emergency.
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