Wanderings and … wonderings.

Scorsese’s last movie of the ’90s is curiously his weakest work. It’s a lazy narrative that seems enamoured with MTV standards/trends of cinematography. It also suffers from ‘The Affliction’: the liberal use of popular music tracks to paper over deficiencies in the script.

It’s a promising concept: Nicolas Cage’s paramedic, physically and emotionally drained, drives around an early ’90s Manhattan – by all accounts a crack-strewn cesspit at that time – in search of the high of saving a life, and a broader redemption as he’s haunted by those he couldn’t save.

By the one-hour mark the picture sadly has nowhere to go. There are a few moments of transcendence, particularly the final shot, but it’s all rather boring, from the cartoon character supporting roles to Cage’s … bored performance. One suspects it could have worked better as a small-scale picture, Mean Streets (1973) with a defibrillator.

The life of an ambulance driver has never looked so torporific. One of the very few Scorsese pictures I’ll pass on should it ever crop up again.