Opens October 22, 1999

Over last decade, Martin Scorsese's films -- like Kundun and The Age of Innocence -- have strayed further and further away from the director's roots. Now, with Bringing Out The Dead, Scorsese and longtime collaborator Paul Schrader have returned to the mean streets of New York and focused on a spiritually bereft and slightly unbalanced character rather reminiscent of Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle. Though long on atmosphere and short on story, Bringing Out The Dead has its intriguing moments, mostly due to Scorsese's trademark technical brilliance. In the end, however, it proves disappointing.

"You can not be near the nearly dead without feeling it." So says Emergency Medical Technician Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage), the tortured hero of Bringing Out The Dead. These words capture the theme of the film, which focuses on three nights in Frank's life as he cruises the streets of Hell's Kitchen in his ambulance, reluctantly trying to save lives. Frank's reluctance comes from the fact that for the last few months, he's lost every victim he's treated and, now, the ghost of one particular innocent named Rosa (Cynthia Roman) is haunting Frank's every waking moment.

Frank keeps telling himself that all he needs are a few days sleep, followed by a couple of days off. He even keeps coming into work late in the vain hope that his boss will fire him. Nothing gives him any comfort until he meets the equally mixed-up daughter (Patricia Arquette) of a cardiac arrest victim, who slowly helps him heal. Indeed, in the end of the film, we see the two of them together in an almost Pieta-like pose, one of many religious overtones running through the movie.

Frank's story is broken down into three very repetitive sections -- three nights and three different ambulance partners to work with. Whether it's Larry's (John Goodman) ability to focus on food, Marcus' (Ving Rhames) religious fervor or Tom Wells' (Tom Sizemore) delight in blood and violence, these three men have learned to "turn off" the frequent emotional isolation of their job. Through their eyes, Frank looks at his own world and tries to figure out how to do the same with little success. If anything, he grows more and more unstable as the hours tick by.

In Schrader's hands, Joe Connelly's novel comes vividly to life. Unfortunately, it simply may not be the type of material that was meant to be translated to the screen. Schrader freely uses the first-person, stream-of-consciousness narration in the book, which forces us to rely heavily on Frank's words not his actions. Granted, Frank's insights are worth listening to, but they aren't enough to power the story. Indeed, as portrayed by Cage, Frank Pierce is one of the most stagnant characters to come along in many a year. He never takes charge of his life, nor does he really change. By the end of the film, I was positively begging this guy to act out in some way, but he never does. While Cage is not at fault on many levels, he does seem to be going through the motions here. He could have brought more complexity to this man in some of the choices he made, but instead he simply stares out at the world with that crazed look he has perfected.

Luckily, Scorsese's keen eye for detail married to the vibrant cinematography of Robert Richardson saves what would have been an otherwise dull film. In their hands, the streets of Hell's Kitchen and the seedy downtown hospital where Frank drops his charges are laid bare, showing us a universe that would be at home in our nightmares. Enmeshed in this world, it's easy to see why Frank has cracked.

Scorsese fans will doubtless find much to like about this movie -- its gritty slice of life realism and dark characterizations -- but most people will most likely leave the theater with a profound sense of dissatisfaction. Visually accomplished but without the necessary sense of salvation, Bringing Out The Dead succeeds as allegory, but the lack of ultimate redemption for its desultory hero left me cold.