With "Bringing out the Dead" Martin Scorsese makes a welcome return to the dark streets of New York City. The film deals, in a typically Scorsesian way, with the hellish life of an ambulance driver who is haunted by images of people he failed to save. Like other archetypal Scorsese heroes in the past, his innate sense of guilt causes severe internal suffering which can only cease after a series of redeeming acts at the end of a bumpy journey. Only this time the source of the hero's guilt is a direct product of his working environment and it is rather specifically designated to the people, and one in particular, that he didn't manage to save.
Scorsese masterfully recreates the driver's microcosm with unflinching accuracy. The everyday pain which makes most paramedics and doctors to become insensitive to the limit of cynicism, the grim reality of the NYC slums and the human despair come dynamically into surface through Scorsese's direction. The supporting characters contribute greatly to the whole structure and Nicholas Cage's performance is excellent. All these elements together with a wisely chosen style that doesn't shun some funny moments from surfacing, help the film to overcome some contrivance of the screenplay which makes the expected redemption scene rather dramatically inert and somehow unconvincing. However, I hardly know any other recent movies that are so intelligently concerned with existential issues and that so consistently avoid any convenient resort to cynicism, a crowd pleasing device that has been widely used recently. A must see.
Scorsese masterfully recreates the driver's microcosm with unflinching accuracy. The everyday pain which makes most paramedics and doctors to become insensitive to the limit of cynicism, the grim reality of the NYC slums and the human despair come dynamically into surface through Scorsese's direction. The supporting characters contribute greatly to the whole structure and Nicholas Cage's performance is excellent. All these elements together with a wisely chosen style that doesn't shun some funny moments from surfacing, help the film to overcome some contrivance of the screenplay which makes the expected redemption scene rather dramatically inert and somehow unconvincing. However, I hardly know any other recent movies that are so intelligently concerned with existential issues and that so consistently avoid any convenient resort to cynicism, a crowd pleasing device that has been widely used recently. A must see.