Nicolas Cage (8mm) stars as Frank Pierce, an Emergency Medical Services driver from Our Lady of Perpetual Mercy Hospital (or "Misery," for short) in Hell’s Kitchen. He’s an insomniac and an alcoholic, a man that has clearly lost his way since failing to save an asthmatic 16-year-old girl six months ago. Everywhere he turns, Frank sees the dead teen and hears her ask why he didn’t rescue her. Subsequently, Frank has lost each of his patients since then and is desperate to find a soul to save. He admits that his role is "less about saving lives than about bearing witness." He’s probably a blast at parties.

At first, Frank is paired with Larry (John Goodman, The Big Lebowski), a goofy ox that seems more concerned with his next meal than his next patient. After receiving a call from Dispatch (the voice is Scorsese’s), the two lackadaisically trudge up to the top floor of an apartment building where an elderly man has suffered a severe heart attack. The man is clearly dead when they arrive, and Larry uses the phone to call a doctor in order to get an official pronouncement of death. Frank continues to perform lifesaving techniques and is eventually able to get a pulse. It is here that Frank meets Mary Burke (Patricia Arquette, Stigmata), the old man’s comely daughter.

Frank and Larry drive the victim to Misery, and as they open its emergency room doors they reveal an ER from hell. There are more freaks there than at a Jeff Foxworthy family reunion. And it’s not just the cases – a crazy security guard threatens people trying to get help and a nurse asks people to leave and die in another city. Misery is on diversion and refusing new admissions because of a rash of overdoses resulting from a new street drug called Red Death. But doctors reluctantly agree to take the elderly patient from Frank and Larry.

The next night, Frank is paired with Marcus (Ving Rhames, Entrapment), a religious man that tries in vain to pick up the female dispatcher (the voice of Queen Latifah). Marcus has a considerably more upbeat outlook on life and tells Frank, "Help someone and you help yourself." The problem is that Frank can’t find anyone to help and hasn’t been able to for quite a while. This line also evokes Taxi Driver’s Wizard (Peter Boyle) telling his co-worker Travis Bickle "You get a job. You become the job." Their evening’s shift is complete after witnessing the birth of an Immaculate Conception and a resurrection.

As Frank drives around the depravity of New York’s nighttime streets, more of Taxi Driver’s lines come to mind. "Someday a real rain will come and wipe this scum off the streets." "I think someone should just take this city and just flush it down the f’in' toilet." And, probably most fitting for our crazy insomniac, "The days go on and on. They don't end. All my life needed was a sense of someplace to go. I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention; I believe that one should become a person like other people."

We slowly learn that Frank isn’t much different than the junkies and wackos he is supposed to be helping. One schizophrenic man named Noel (Marc Anthony, Big Night) wants to die but can’t muster the courage to off himself. Like Noel, Frank wants to be fired from his job, but can’t quite quit on his own and resorts to frequently coming in late and calling in sick in hopes of getting the boot. Ultimately, in an ironic turn, Frank is finally able to help someone, but his services are rendered in a less-than-routine fashion. The whole story takes place over a span of three days.

Although Dead looks more like an Oliver Stone flick, comparisons to Taxi Driver shouldn’t come as a surprise. Screenwriter Paul Schrader also worked on Scorsese’s Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ in addition to Taxi Driver. He adapted this script from the 1998 Joe Connelly novel of the same name (Connelly was actually a medic for nine years in New York). Dead looks great and is brightly lensed by Robert Richardson (The Horse Whisperer), with Scorsese’s regular editor (Thelma Schoonmaker) and production designer (Dante Ferretti) adding to the fantastic appearance. But the film is very uneven and leads Cage and Arquette are really bad actors. It seems like Cage is getting all of the roles that Bruce Willis used to take, as he continues to demonstrate that his Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas was a big fluke. I think a movie about Marcus or psycho ambulance driver Tom Walls (Tom Sizemore, Saving Private Ryan) would have been more interesting.

2:05 - for gritty violent content, drug use and language