Getting sick or injured in New York is not a good idea. The Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is under-staffed, and too many of its drivers appear to be burned out like Frank Pierce (Nicolas Cage). Early in his five-year career, Frank earned awards. Now he’s on the verge of getting fired. He shows up late, leaves early, drinks on duty and teeters on the edge of sanity. He even starts seeing the ghosts of people who’ve died on his watch. Having gone months without saving anyone, Frank desperately needs time off, but he has used up his sick time, and the EMS is too short-handed to dismiss him, much less give him a break.

His co-workers are also showing the strain, but in different ways. Larry (John Goodman) spends most of his time preparing for his captain’s test, even though he’s as sick of the job as Frank. Tom (Tom Sizemore) isn’t above verbally (and sometimes physically) abusing the repeat customers who come his way, and Marcus (Ving Rhames) is a religious fanatic who thinks he’s a smooth romancer.

In many ways, their job is an exercise in futility. Thanks to poverty and a booming drug trade, many patients rotate in and out of emergency rooms as if they were hotel suites. With nowhere else to go, the hospitals are the only place the indigent have. As a result, the ER finds itself having to prioritize its patients. Heart attack victims, like the one Frank tries to rescue early on, are low on the totem pole.

Despite the neglect, Mr. Burke, the patient in question, remains alive. Because his survival may bring an end to Frank’s dry spell, he develops a fondness for the man and his suffering estranged daughter Mary (Patricia Arquette). However, at the same time, Frank thinks that the silent Mr. Burke may actually be begging him to commit euthanasia.

If all of this sounds like a bleak way to spend two and a half hours, it is. Surprisingly, Bringing Out the Dead is actually a compelling and vibrant film. New York-based director Martin Scorsese has a real feel for the energy and atmosphere of his hometown. Oliver Stone’s regular cinematographer Robert Richardson creates an authentically gritty atmosphere that evolves into the stuff of nightmares. As Frank slips deeper into madness, the colors seem to change and Cage begins to look more cadaverous with each scene. The eclectic soundtrack, which includes everything from Van Morrison to Igor Stravinsky, blends seamlessly with the images, giving the movie a demonic aura.

Cage’s performance provides a much needed anchor to the appropriately chaotic proceedings. Frank is a showy role (like the one he had in Leaving Las Vegas), but Cage keeps the eye-rolling and emoting to a minimum. He also makes Frank compassionate and likable enough for an audience to stomach his self-flagellation. There are dozens of memorable characters. New Zealander Cliff Curtis is great as a suave dope dealer, and moonlighting singer Marc Anthony is quite good as a maniac who haunts the streets near the hospital. Some of these people seem to be little more than bad examples, but their faces linger long after the movie ends. There is also a wicked gallows humor running throughout the flick. Scorsese and Queen Latifah are a riot as unseen dispatchers, and the scene where Marcus leads an impromptu prayer circle to save the life of a musician who has overdosed is priceless.

Bringing Out the Dead covers a lot of the same territory that Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader (working from the novel by former ambulance driver Joe Connelly) previously explored in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. Guilt, obsession and loneliness ooze from every frame. These feelings are painful, but they are often universal. Scorsese and Schrader’s partnership remains vital because they have retained their ability to make the madness of others seem like one’s own. (R)

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