Note: Please be aware that were I to disparage any of Mr. Scorsese's artistic or commercial enterprises, my NYU diploma would be repossessed by the well known Marty Mafia. Luckily, I can praise Bringing Out The Dead without having to lie. It is both a look back to the great character studies of his earlier career (most notably Mean Streets and Taxi Driver) and a look forward as Scorsese continues to ignore traditional rules of pacing and narrative. The film is exhausting and punishing, the reward being an eventual shared perspective with the deranged lead character (Nicolas Cage.) I found it to be an incredibly daring film, and also damagingly funny. The Friday night outer-borough audience, who may have been expecting Face/Off, were bored and disappointed. Know what you are interested in taking away from this film before you spend the scratch to go see it.

Bringing Out The Dead focuses on an emergency medical worker in the Hell's Kitchen section of a Dinkins-era Manhattan. We don't know how he got there or what he wants, we only know that he's slumping. He hasn't saved a life in quite some time, the image of a lost patient seems to be haunting him, and he's begun to believe that his life's work is as an observer on the threshold between life and death. As he puts it: a grief mop. Given the setting, most of the calls are horrible drug overdoses, gunshots or self-inflicted wounds. The first call of the film is a cardiac arrest of Patricia Arquette's father, which touches off the closest thing to a traditional story within this film. Arquette stands vigil at the dirty, overcrowded hospital (based on St. Claire's) and begins a friendship with Cage as he shuttles from the base back out into the trenches.

Critics will say the film meanders, or its flow is choppy. It slams quickly from high-octane intensity, to quiet, pensive moments. It is true that there is little plot other than the slow deterioration of Cage's grip on reality. But the technique works marvels. The performances, editing, cinematography (DP Robert Richardson's trademarked "halo" effect) and music are all top notch. What this film does mesmerizingly well is tap into the desperation of Cage's struggle. Whereas De Niro in Taxi Driver goes mad from isolation, Cage in Dead goes mad from overexposure. The two films are similar in that the characters conclude that they will ground themselves by acting violently. However, the earlier film surely presents its character darkly. Here, the insanity is always reaching for a grace and beauty. Cage hallucinates that he can walk through a rainswept warehouse district and pull up shadowy Lazaruses with a smile. Most remarkable in this film is the twisted internal logic. How salvation will come by beating someone with a baseball bat is something that can only be explained by sitting through the entire film.

The rockbottom glimpses of Cage's furious despair are some of the most dynamic screen moments I've seen in quite some time. He rides in that ambulance at top speeds for the same reason Jake LaMotta fought. He needs it. He also needs alcohol, and lots of it, which makes Bringing Out The Dead a definite contender for the revised Romaticized Visions of Alcoholism Film Festival.

Sandwiched between these masochistic moments of warrior-exploration is a sparkling and unlikely romantic yarn, as well as some crisp and original comedy. Most of the comedy comes from Cage's supporting cast. His EMS partners rotate. John Goodman plays a short-sighted oaf mostly concerned about dinner. Ving Rhames steals every scene he's in as the debonair Christian who likes to yank chains, even among those he is saving (like goth dude I. B. Bangin.) Tom Sizemore is completely crazy, and confuses his work with that of a teen prankster cum vigilante's.

As with all Scorsese films, music plays a big role. Van Morrison's "T B Sheets" plays over and over again, surprisingly appropriate from a literal, lyrical standpoint. The hard action driving sequences are set to The Clash and Johnny Thunders. That excited me a great deal. There's a little Motown soul (as always) and a spectacular use of UB40's "Red Red Wine" in a scene as oddly perfect as the one from GoodFellas to the tune of Donovan's "Atlantis." The cake-taker is the use of 10,000 Maniacs' "These Are The Days" as Cage gives Arquette a lift in the back of the ambulance. They are driving through hell, on the way to a gruesome scene of familial suffering. The bumps and bad shocks cause her to whap her head against the wall numerous times. But the indescribable human connection has been made, and the moment lifts itself out of the context it's in to show just a beat of true kindness. 98 percent of the audience took this extended shot as a little breather, and used the opportunity to whisper in their date's ear about something unrelated. It is the most subversive use of pop music since P. T. Anderson's use of Night Ranger and Rick Springfield in Boogie Nights.

I must point out, though, that Marty did baffle the hell out of me by including R.E.M.'s "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" I don't think he was kidding, and it made me very uncomfortable. R.E.M. are many things, but they are not desperate, balls-to-the-wall, three A.M. Hell's Kitchen rockers, despite what the shimmy effect on "Kenneth" wants you to think. It was a choice Marty made and it didn't sit well with me; fair enough.

I can't express enough how cathartic this film experience was for me. Maybe it's just being in New York for too long, dealing with the horrors of too much humanity up close my own damn self! It is also a mature study of the nature of Death and Dying, a heavy topic not often dwelled upon in movies (or, indeed, in public, except for churches.) What strikes me most is how it drops you without a parachute directly into this footsoldier position without an explanation. In this regard, the picture reminded me a great deal of The Thin Red Line. Instead of lizards and toucans, the indigenous creatures are the bodies of the night, waiting to be carried away whether by medicine or death, and we the audience are there just to mop it up.