Bringing Out The Dead
One of the qualifications of a good film is that it delivers what it advertises. Many can look past a movie with a simple plotline if they walked into the theater only expecting that. Martin Scorcese’s Bringing Out The Dead is not the type of movie that the wonderful trailers promised.
Nicolas Cage portrays Frank Peirce, an ambulance driver in the slums of New York during the early ‘90s. Frank believes he is losing his touch; he hasn’t saved a life in months and cannot seem to shake the ghost of a girl who died in his care. He spends the movie trying to find rest from the nightmares that plague him. Cage’s wide eyes and gaunt look are sufficient to convince viewers of his own insanity. He does an excellent job portraying a man sucked into circumstances beyond his control.
When a director such as Martin Scorcese is teamed with an extremely talented cinematographer and editor, one can expect a fantastically shot and executed film. Cinematographer Robert Richardson does a wonderful job recreating the neon-covered streets of New York City while editor Thema Schoonmaker takes the pacing up to the insane rush of the ambulance. During the course of the film, the shots used are fascinating. The camera is placed sideways, tilted at strange angles and zooms in for extreme close-ups. All of these techniques enforce the disorientation of the characters. For the record, Cage is a wonderful actor and the crew does a phenomenal job. However, they did a fantastic job with a script that can’t find the way out of the complicated narrative the writer has created. The film is long and lacks any real focus, simply following Frank as he moves from one “cure” to the next. It does not stop to focus on his drinking problem, which is one of the many stereotypical plots toe movie flows through before finally ending on the most unsatisfactory of notes.
The characters run on and off the screen, barely developed. Frank’s partners either call in sick or don’t show up, leaving him with new supporting characters. The only characters who last throughout the film are bit parts that barely get past a cursory examination. The four constants are Frank, Mr. Burke, a comatose man fighting his way back from a heart attack, Mary Burke, the obligatory love interest and Noel, a crazed homeless man.
Mary Burke (played by Patricia Arquette) is not very interesting; she is a reformed junkie who hated her father until he was dying. It is an old story and there are no new twists to interest a viewer this time. Arquette herself does not add any extra dimension to Burke, merely acting her scenes and being there for Cage to play off of her. It seems in a movie that hinges everything on two characters, the second one should at least warrant your attention.
The humor is lost among the bleak portrayal of human nature and the dark alleys of the city. Sure, the dispatchers throw off one-liners while sending people off to calls and the hospital is filled with strange characters who seem to have been added simply because they were funny, but it isn’t enough.
Bringing Out The Dead did not seem to have a point, a moral, or even a reason for existing. It simply moved through Frank’s full-moon weekend midnight shift, following characters either too strange or too typical to be believed.
:: Prose :: Poetry :: Novels :: Fanfiction :: About :: Home ::
Midnight Musings copyright Meiran. Layout and Design by Cyn W.
Brought to you by :: Cerulean Dreame :: Erised Designs ::