Keep it brief review:
"Asphalt City (Black Flies)" Follows a rookie NYC paramedic as he struggles to cope with the high pressures of night shift in the city that never sleeps. Essentially "Training Day" meets "Bringing Out the Dead". Featuring a strong performance from Sean Penn, however sadly the film feels as cold and empty as its title suggests. The world of emergency medicine is fascinating and has many stories to tell, unfortunately this film squanders what could have been an interesting story to tell, and instead features a hollow script and story identity crisis. The end result is a cold bloated mess with no satisfying conclusion.
Positives: + Good performance from Sean Penn + Shows some of the cold harsh reality that paramedics have to deal with.
Negatives:
2 out of 5.
"Asphalt City (Black Flies)" Follows a rookie NYC paramedic as he struggles to cope with the high pressures of night shift in the city that never sleeps. Essentially "Training Day" meets "Bringing Out the Dead". Featuring a strong performance from Sean Penn, however sadly the film feels as cold and empty as its title suggests. The world of emergency medicine is fascinating and has many stories to tell, unfortunately this film squanders what could have been an interesting story to tell, and instead features a hollow script and story identity crisis. The end result is a cold bloated mess with no satisfying conclusion.
Positives: + Good performance from Sean Penn + Shows some of the cold harsh reality that paramedics have to deal with.
Negatives:
- Overlong long story that has major identity crises.
- Paramedics have very interesting stories and challenges and sadly this script doesn't do much with the material.
- Cold and hollow story telling with no real pay off.
2 out of 5.
