Click here to copy URL

Bringing Out the Dead

1999

Martin Scorsese

Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames ...

6.4

10,270

Drama Nicolas Cage plays EMS paramedic Frank Pierce. It is the early 1990's and New York has not yet undergone its renaissance of recent years. Surrounded by the injured and the dying, Frank is dwelling in an urban night-world, crumbling under the accumulated weight of too many years of saving and losing lives. The film follows Frank over the course of fifty-six hours in his life - two days and three nights on the job - as he reaches the very ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times	"The film wisely has no real plot, because the paramedic's days have no beginning or goal. (...) To look at Bringing Out the Dead --to look, indeed, at almost any Scorsese film--is to be reminded that film can touch us urgently and deeply. (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of four)"	POS
United States	Janet Maslin The New York Times	"An intense, volatile film full of sorrow and wild, mordant humor. (...) Cage, with the look of an anguished medieval saint, gives a fine, haunting performance that makes Frank's spiritual crisis very real indeed."	POS
United Kingdom	Ian Freer Empire	"Scorsese's breathless directorial mastery is at full tilt: finding fantastic variety in a film rooted around the exteriors/interiors of an ambulance (...) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Emanuel Levy Variety	"Dark humor, visual pyrotechnics and bravura acting help make more palatable a movie that's intense and full of gory details."	POS
United Kingdom	Time Out	"It's immaculately crafted and exhilaratingly paced, but in the end it's never as emotionally involving as it could and should be."	NEU
United States	Mike Clark USA Today	"In a role as tailor-made for him as the story is for its writer and director, Nicolas Cage anchors the movie with one of his best performances."	POS
United States	Bob Graham SFGATE	"Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader return there for what amounts to the flip side of 'Taxi Driver.' It is equally shocking. It is also surprisingly funny and very moving."	POS
United States	Jay Carr Boston Globe	"While heartfelt and beautifully crafted, Bringing Out the Dead is too freighted with its protagonist's failed savior complex and is surprisingly lacking in primal impact"	NEU
United States	Rita Kempley The Washington Post	"Doesn't pack the punch of Schrader and Scorsese's career-best collaborations"	POS

Return to movie

We encourage you to check the reviews' original sources. Intellectual property rights of these reviews belong to their authors and/or the correspondent media from which they have been extracted. If you'd like to help us to add more reviews to your favorite movies, just send us a message.