Bringing Out the Dead, 1999.
Directed by Martin Scorsese.
Starring Nicolas Cage, Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames, and Tom Sizemore.
SYNOPSIS:
Martin Scorsese’s 1999 film Bringing Out the Dead, which underwhelmed at the box office but connected with many critics, makes its debut on both Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD in this Paramount Presents edition. The studio also commissioned a nice batch of new extras. You get a code for a digital copy too.
As a film fan who also enjoys music and sports, I couldn’t resist this analogy: sometimes a movie can be like a super group full of talented people from various bands who don’t seem to gel, or a team that loads its roster with high-priced free agents but posts a losing record.
That’s how I feel about Bringing Out the Dead, the 1999 Martin Scorsese film written by Paul Schrader and loaded with a talented cast. Your mileage may vary, but for me, this one doesn’t quite come together to reach the heights of previous Scorsese-Schrader collaborations, such as, of course, Raging Bull and Taxi Driver.
Nicolas Cage stars as burned-out paramedic Frank Pierce, who struggles to get through his shifts on the streets of New York City after failing to save a homeless teenager named Rose several months prior. He suffers from depression and insomnia and has started to see the young girl’s face on the people hanging out on the streets during his night shifts.
One evening, he and his partner Larry (John Goodman) respond to a 911 call by a family whose father is in cardiac arrest. They get the man to the hospital, where he’s barely hanging on, and Frank befriends his daughter, Mary (Patricia Arquette), a former junkie who has a connection to Noel (Marc Anthony), a homeless drug addict who ends up in the hospital on a regular basis.
As Frank heads out on subsequent shifts with the deeply religious Marcus (Ving Rhames) and the violent hothead Tom (Tom Sizemore), he makes a point of visiting Mary to let her know how her father is doing. He soon discovers that she also has a connection to the drug dealer Cy Coates (Cliff Curtis), who is responsible for the local epidemic of “Red Death” heroin.
A voice-over sporadically pops in to tell us what Frank is thinking, which comes across as a bit heavy-handed at times. It’s also not really clear what Frank truly wants: the story is episodic and just kind of ends, rather than wrapping up in an interesting way.
Bringing Out the Dead is based on the 1998 novel of the same name. I haven’t read it, but maybe this is the kind of story that works better on the page than on the screen.
This year is the movie’s 25th anniversary, and to mark the occasion, Paramount has issued it for the first time on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray as part of its Paramount Presents line. Yes, it’s never been released on Blu-ray before. A code for a digital copy is included too.
In terms of bonus features, you get a smattering of extras, some of which were newly created for this edition. Here’s the new stuff:
• Filmmaker Focus (12 minutes): Scorsese is never shy about discussing his movies, and here he gives a thorough, if very brief, look back on the making of the film.
• A Rumination on Salvation (15 minutes): Cage serves up a very entertaining discussion of how he prepared himself to play a paramedic traversing the mean streets of New York City after dark.
• Cemetery Streets (6 minutes): Schrader gets his turn to talk about the movie.
• City of Ghosts (9 minutes): Cinematographer Robert Richardson gives a good overview of his approach to ensuring the grit and grime of New York City was captured on film.
The rest of the extras are of the legacy variety, with the cast talking on the set about the movie (23 minutes) and another batch of chats with the cast and crew (11 minutes).
The original theatrical trailer rounds out the platter.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★★★ / Movie: ★★★
Brad Cook
