If someone were to pitch me a Scorsese movie starring Nicolas Cage as a paramedic in the process of going insane, I’d be hooked immediately. And then I’d watch Bringing Out the Dead and be surprisingly disappointed. This is the only collaboration between one of my favorite directors and one of my favorite actors, so it’s a real shame that it doesn’t play out better. Nicolas Cage doesn’t even do any of his somewhat-annoying Cage-isms. But there is something off about the movie, and maybe by the end of this review I will have pinpointed what it is.

Nicolas Cage is Frank Pierce, a paramedic who hasn’t successfully saved anyone in months and is therefore incredibly depressed. He sees the faces of his “victims” everywhere he goes, and suffers from insomnia because of it. Frank just needs a vacation. But there’s no rest for the saints of New York. We follow Frank on three shifts, paired with three different fellow paramedics. There’s John Goodman as Larry; a simple man who sees their job as a reason to be happy because they help people, Ving Rhames as the religious zealot (who is still somehow okay with picking up prostitutes), Marcus, and Tom Sizemore as…Tom, a volatile, ticking timebomb of a man who seems to prefer nearly killing people instead of saving their lives.

Frank responds to a call on the first shift we see him on regarding a man who is in cardiac arrest. At the scene, Frank sees the man’s adult, former-junkie daughter, Mary Burke, and he becomes obsessed with her. It doesn’t appear to be a romantic thing between them, Frank just sees the light of hope when he looks at her. She’s something for him to latch on to and find comfort in when the world around him becomes ever darker.

The movie seems to have a tonal problem. At different points, the film is depressing, goofy, frustrating, helpless, hopeful, and romantic. It never really lands anywhere. It was very strange watching a scene where Frank and Marcus are driving and they flip their ambulance over and I’m laughing intentionally. I do believe screenwriter Paul Schrader intended the scene to feel comedic, but it’s bizarre to be laughing at such a scene in such a movie. Bringing Out the Dead reminds me of another Scorsese film. It’s a dark and depressing, hellish nightmare version of After Hours with a dash of Taxi Driver.

Visually, the movie is uncanny. It looks like it was filmed digitally, even though it was made with filmstock. It’s oversaturated and incredibly grainy, which I think serve a purpose for displaying the inner anguish of Nicolas Cage’s character, who also acts as the narrator, but it can be an assault on the eyes in some scenes. The final shot, riffing on Catholic paintings of Mother Mary holding the Christ child, is a nice touch, however. It also has opening credits that are designed very similarly to those old piracy warnings that played at the beginning of DVDs.

In the end, this Scorsese film gets swept under the rug, and perhaps that is as it should be. I hate to say it, as I have never watched a Scorsese movie that I didn’t like, but this one comes close. Maybe after a repeat viewing I will change my tune, but for now, I will have to settle on the fact that it was one Nicolas Cage’s best performances…and that’s about all it has going for it.