Bringing Out the Dead (1999)

January 13, 2023 7:07 AM

After a disheartening and haunting career wears him down, New York City paramedic Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage) begins to collapse under the strain of saving lives and witnessing deaths. Through the course of a few nights, three co-workers (John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore) accompany Pierce as he grasps for sanity and pushes to be fired. Before Pierce falls off the edge, he still has a hope when he forms a friendship with a victim's daughter (Patricia Arquette).

Also starring Marc Anthony, Mary Beth Hurt, Cliff Curtis, Cynthia Roman, Sonja Sohn, Aida Turturro, Queen Latifah, Michael Kenneth Williams.

Directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Paul Schrader, based on the novel by Joe Connelly.

73% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently available for digital rental in the US. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (5 comments total)

One of my favorite Scorcese movies. Highly underrated. For me, it's the pace and editing of the film that I love. It moves at full throtle like being in an ambulance that is destined to crash before it can reach it's destination. The thing that surprised me was that the book it is based on moves at that exact same pace and they captured it perfectly.
posted by hoodrich at 8:44 AM on January 13, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh yeah and - "I Be Banging!"
posted by hoodrich at 8:45 AM on January 13, 2023

This movie, to me, made me think Scorsese didn't like the way NYC was changing from all the newcomers so he made this to scare people away.
posted by kokaku at 1:47 AM on January 14, 2023

this movie is so well done, but it totally spikes my anxiety levels.
posted by drewbage1847 at 8:28 PM on January 14, 2023

One of my favorite Scorcese movies. Highly underrated.

Weirdly, I found it precisely the reverse: it is, I think, the only Scorsese movie I have found actively unpleasant to watch and the only one I have never had an urge to see a second time.

I may go back and look at it again at some point now that we’re a quarter-century on, but I’ve gotta say I am blind to it’s virtues.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:04 AM on January 15, 2023