Herald rating: * * * * *
Running time: 118 mins
Rental: Today
Review: Ewan McDonald
Day and night, night and day, Frank cruises the stinking, steaming, sodden, sleazy streets of New York's Hell's Kitchen in his ambulance to the relentless howl of his siren and the whine of Van Morrison's TB Sheets, dragging
raw and and drugged and dying flesh to the emergency room of Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy ("Perpetual Mis'ry," the locals call it).
Over three shifts Frank (Nicolas Cage) shares his pain and the futility with three different partners as he drifts in and out of drunkenness and sanity.
First is Larry (John Goodman), who deals with the job by focusing on where his next meal is coming from. On day two, it's Marcus (Ving Rhames), a Christian who uses crises to demonstrate the power of Jesus. On the third day Frank's partner is Walls (Tom Sizemore), who is coming apart at the seams.
Haunting Frank's thoughts are two women. One is Rose, an 18-year-old homeless girl whose life he failed to save. The other is Mary (Patricia Arquette, Cage's then-wife), the daughter of a man in intensive care whose life consists of dying and being shocked back to life. Mary is a former druggie (which is where Cliff Curtis comes into the picture) and Frank thinks they can save each other.
There is no plot because Frank's days have no beginning, middle and end, just limbo. And the city has no core either. It's crumbling, like Frank. Three men at the peak of their individual powers combine to make this the most compelling movie you will see this year: writer Paul Schrader and director Martin Scorsese, who have previously collaborated on Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation Of Christ; and Cage in his best role since his Oscar-winning Leaving Las Vegas.
