Bringing Out the Dead

Frank is a Manhattan medic, working the graveyard shift in a two-man ambulance team. He's burned out, exhausted and seeing ghosts.

We see three nights and two days in the life of a burnt-out paramedic. He was once called Father Frank for his efforts to rescue lives. Frank now sees the ghosts of those he failed to save around every corner, especially a young woman he failed to save six months' earlier. No longer able to save people, he now just brings in the dead.

He finds he can not quit his job, so instead tries everything he can to get fired. He calls in sick and delays taking calls where he might have to face one more victim he couldn't help.

During the film we meet a number Franks of partners: Larry, who thinks about dinner; Marcus, who looks to Jesus; and Tom, a tag'em and bag'em sociopath, who wallops people when work is slow.

Franks only retreat is the company of a Mary, the drug addict daughter of heart attack victim he brought in. The story is base on a book by Joe Conelly who was a paramedic for nine year before becoming a writer. The story has therefore a degree of realism, and in the hands of Scorsese, back in his home town of New York, the film is visually amazing.

For a movie about death, this is often worryingly funny. Often faced with nothing but death and suffering, the characters use dark humour as a defense mechanism.

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