Bringing Out the Dead (1999) - Movie Synopsis & Plot

Sirens screaming and lights flashing, a New York City ambulance speeds through the night. Its drivers are paramedics working the graveyard shift-men who come face-to-face with the dead and the dying on a daily basis. Burnt out from one too many nights on the job, they are nearly as broken as the bodies they haul through the streets. What keeps them going is their caustic sense of comedy, and an acrid view of a world which seems to have its surreal epicenter in Manhattan.

"Bringing Out The Dead," starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Martin Scorsese, is a Paramount Pictures and Touchstone Pictures presentation. Produced by Scott Rudin and Barbara De Fina, the film also stars Patricia Arquette, John Goodman, Ving Rhames and Tom Sizemore. The film is executive produced by Adam Schroeder and Bruce S. Pustin, and is co-produced by Joseph Reidy and Eric Steel. The screenplay by Paul Schrader is based upon the novel by Joe Connelly. Paramount Pictures is part of the entertainment operations of Viacom Inc. Touchstone Pictures is part of the Buena Vista Motion Picture Group.

Nicolas Cage plays EMS paramedic Frank Pierce. It is the early 1990's and New York has not yet undergone its renaissance of recent years. Surrounded by the injured and the dying, Frank is dwelling in an urban night-world, crumbling under the accumulated weight of too many years of saving and losing lives. The film follows Frank over the course of fifty-six hours in his life - two days and three nights on the job - as he reaches the very brink of spiritual collapse and redemption.

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