Bringing Out the Dead
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Bringing Out the Dead is a 1999 motion picture. It is a dark drama shot mostly at night in New York City, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Nicolas Cage, Ving Rhames, John Goodman, and Tom Sizemore as paramedics, as well as Patricia Arquette. The movie is based on a novel by Joe Connelly, a former New York City medic.
The movie is centered on paramedic Frank Pierce (Cage). It takes place over the course of three days as Pierce works three separate shifts with three different partners (the Goodman, Rhames, and Sizemore characters). Each of these characters are very different people and thus each shift is a very different experience for Pierce. For example, Rhames's character is a born again Christian, a subject which arises on several occasions during their time together.
Pierce is burned out and somewhat unstable from too many years on the job. He works several long shifts in a row and behaves erratically. He has visions of a young girl named Rose who died of a severe asthma attack while under his care. The most vivid of these happens after Pierce takes some unknown pills that a drug dealer offers him and starts having frightening hallucinations. He also starts feeling close to Mary Burke (Arquette), the daughter of a heart attack victim.