The director's name got me to go see this. I'm always willing to take a shot at a movie directed by Martin Scorsese in spite of negative reviews. I always find something that just amazes me even in movies of his that I don't like. But this was a Scorsese film that I not only liked, but one that had me fully focused forward throughout.

Nicholas Cage is a paramedic who has spent five years mopping up the blood and gore one finds on the streets of New York City. Frank Pierce is a burn-out, tortured by the visions of those whose lives he was unable to save. Visions that are showing up with greater and greater frequency. His real-life wife Patricia Arquette is Mary Burke, a woman whose father is a patient that Cage tried to save and who now lays fighting for his life in the emergency room of a hospital after spending more than a few moments dead. He came back to life after his daughter followed Pierce's suggestion of putting on a Sinatra record.

Their lives intertwine as we watch Pierce dealing with the madness of the city streets after dark. He wades through this cesspool with three different partners and one can make an argument that the three acts of this movie are separated by the periods of time during which he works with each. John Goodman is the first, and as Larry, he hasn't seen enough of the sights paramedics see to reach the burn-out stage. Ving Rhames comes next and his Marcus is so burnt out that he can only work two shifts per week. Tom Sizemore is third and he is well beyond the edge of the envelope as Tom Walls. All three of the partners are excellent but Rhames and Sizemore steal almost every scene they are in. In particular Rhames is awesome as he conducts a psuedo-religious service in an attempt to revive a victim as his partner works on the drug-overdosed man laying dead on the ground.

Scorsese makes much of the life and death struggle here, and there are subtle references to what comes after life on Earth ends. But he does it without offending, at least he didn't offend me.

The visuals are nothing short of amazing. No film bears the name Scorsese without great camera work, but this is exceptional even for him. Don't buy into the negatives of people who expect brilliance to be routine from Scorsese everytime out. Aside from a few moments where Cage is obviously acting rather than living the role, this movie is a winner.