|
| Foocha! is a non-profit Web site. We do it for kicks, not for cash. If you're interested in writing for the site, click here |
|
 |
|
|
 |
|
| Movies,
Justin Harries,
20 January 1999 |
Rating: F4
|
|
| |
| |
|
New York, a la Martin Sorsese. A cess pool of human degradation, where life and death walk hand in hand, where there is always a new low to be enacted. And through all this depravity, a solitary, isolated man tries to make sense of himself and the world around him, without drowning in its excess. Sounds familiar? Of course, and the very fact that the screenplay was written by the one and only Paul Schrader should tell you that we are in very transversed waters, however the films protagonist, EMT Frank Pierce is quite a different kettle of fish from Travis Bickle.
Over three days during the fraught graveyard shift, we follow the exploits of our hero (played by Nicholas Cage) as he attempts to save the inhabitants of NY’s less salubrious neibourhoods, all the while desperately clinging to his receding shreds of sanity. You see, Frank has been not too lucky in the life saving department, giving him oodles of Catholic guilt to contend with, not to mention some eerie hallucinations of a girl he failed to resuscitate. Redemption comes in the form of Mary Burke (played by Cages real life misses Patricia Arquette), whose father has suffered a massive stroke. Will his recovery remedy Frank’s plight, or will the EMT resort to other means to salvage his sanity?
Their first coupling since 1975’s Taxi driver, Sorsese and Schrader retread old ground. Once again, Sorsese (still amazing how he can make cinema this visceral) administers the right amount of adrenaline, and always has the difribluators on standby – especially needed as Schraders screenplay is a bit of a stiff.
Franks interior monologues are rather heavy handed, providing the film with an allegorical subtext it rarely needs. Indeed the strength of the film lies with Sorseses hallitory vision of his very own mean streets during the graveyard shift – the freaks truly come out at night. As Frank descends further down his unenviable path, the ambulance call outs become blurred, yet hyper real rides into the blackest recesses of human capability. Yet, unlike Travis, Frank is not too badly burned by all this to be beyond reproach. Cage handles Frank’s plight deftly; creating a man who is fallible, damaged but still likeable. However, as we are plunged straight into this turmoil, I found it difficult to grasp the fundamentals of the person Frank once was – we are too far down the road to get truly involved.
This truly is Marty's trip – even if sometimes the destination is a little disappointing, when this demented genius of a man is at the wheel you’re always guaranteed a pretty wild ride.
UK rating:
15
US rating:
R
Martin Scorsese1999, USA
Nicolas Cage, John Goodman, Patricia Arquette, Ving Rhames and Mary Beth Hurt
Top Home |
|
|
|
|
