The other night we watched this Martin Scorsese directed film, starring Nicholas Cage and Patricia Arquette. I have not been a Nicholas Cage fan for long, and must admit that his more recent films are more enjoyable to watch than his earlier stuff (Raising Arizona, for instance).
Cage plays an ambulance driver who is haunted by the death of one of his patients. It was a young girl and he made a mistake, she died. While driving through the streets on duty, he sees her face on everyone he passes. That is basically the story. It’s quite a hard film to follow so you have to pay attention. In between his hauntings, the film is filled with some very comical moments as well as moments where you have to feel sorry for the patients. Arquette comes into the film as the daughter of a heart attack victim, and on his trips to the hospital to take new patients he constantly bumps into her. As her family have not signed a ’do not resuscitate form, they constantly have to shock him to keep him alive. This gets to Cage as he can hear the man begging for his help through his thoughts. I will not spoil what Cage does.
Other characters make the film funny, and I’m not sure whether it is supposed to be a black comedy, but that’s how it came over to me. You don’t get to know about the backgrounds of the main character either, his home life or his family, but you do get to realise that he loves to drink. The film lacked direction.
I was looking forward to watching this film , but ended up being very disappointed.