Paramedics: burnout and skill

 

   Movies about paramedics don't exactly roll off the Hollywood assembly line, but we’ve had a few. Remember Martin Scorsese’s Bringing Out the Dead, a 1999 movie that waded into lurid New York City territory with Nicolas Cage playing a burnt-out paramedic?

  We’ve also had nonfiction entries,  including the BBC series Ambulance and Honorable But Broken: EMS in Crisis, both of which can be viewed on Amazon Prime.

  Because paramedics engage in high-stress work, their lives bristle with life-and-death dramas in which their skills constantly are tested. Dealing with a body that has been pried out of a wrecked automobile doesn’t exactly qualify as an activity most of us would consider part of a dream job.

     In Code 3, Rainn Wilson plays Randy, a paramedic teetering on the edge of burnout. Set during the course of a single 24-hour shift, the movie teams Wilson with Lil Rel Howrey, who plays Randy's ambulance-driving partner.

     Laced with rueful humor, a series of California-based episodes put Randy through physical and emotional challenges as he wonders about the meaning of his life. Can he make a real difference in a job that’s constantly overwhelming?

    Aimee Carrero portrays Jessica, a trainee thrown into the mix. Uncorrupted by over-exposure to tragedy and untarnished by the cynicism of veterans, Jessica approaches her job believing she can help.

     Director Christopher Leone, working from a screenplay credited to him and Patrick Pianezza, a former paramedic, draws on the real-life experiences of those who ply the paramedics trade. Safe to assume, then, that we're watching reality-based drama.

     Some of the movie's tension arises from recurring conflicts between the paramedics and the staff of an already-packed emergency room where sick, wounded, or drugged-out patients are transported.

    Dr. Serano (Rob Riggle), a smug emergency room doc, makes no attempt to conceal his disdain for paramedics, viewing them as nuisances who add to emergency room glut. Overdone? Maybe, but every movie seems to need a resident jerk.

     Yvette Nicole Brown portrays Shanice, the harried supervisor of the city’s paramedics. She insists that Randy finish his shift, even though he’s landed a lower-stress job with an insurance company and plans to leave the EMS world.

      Office veteran Wilson gives Randy a convincing mix of skill and loathing, sometimes breaking the fourth wall to talk directly to viewers. The rest of the cast is equally game.

      Individual calls made by the paramedics — including one in which they're attacked by a shotgun-wielding woman — are compelling, although the story's overall arc feels predictable, which means Code 3 seldom feels freshly imagined. A richer story would have helped.

     Code 3 gets its points across, and it makes us grateful for those who toil in fields few of us would want to till. That's almost -- if not quite -- enough.

 

‘The Menu’: a tasty satire about foodies

     The Menu takes aim at restaurant obsessives, folks who'll pay a fortune to be served fashionably minuscule portions.

   Price tags, however, are anything but small. The well-heeled or wannabes willingly open their wallets. In return, they're rewarded with super creative dishes prepared under the guidance of executive chefs who have attained celebrity status.

      In The Menu, director Mark Mylod employs a strong cast -- led by Ralph Fiennes and Anya Taylor-Joy -- for a darkly hued comedy with an amply stocked side dish of horror. Food snobs beware, Mylod's coming for you. 

     For most of its one-hour and 46-minute run-time, The Menu serves its observations with a sharp satirical edge.

       The movie owes much of its success to Fiennes, who plays Chef Julian Slowik, the culinary genius who presides over a restaurant so exclusive it's located on an island where all the food that's served is locally harvested. Diners arrive by boat.

     When he introduces a new course to the assembled diners, Slowik claps his hands loudly and the kitchen staff -- visible to the diners -- snaps to attention.  Slowik has turned his staff into a paramilitary food force. 

      The only response to any question Slowik might ask: "Yes, chef."

       The diners are a select group. John Leguizamo appears as an actor whose career has hit the downside. He arrives with his assistant (Aimee Carrero), a young woman who's ready to seek greener employment pastures.

        Judith Light and Reed Birney play a couple celebrating their anniversary, although they don't seem especially happy about it. 

        Taylor-Joy appears as the date of a young man (Nicholas Hoult) who thinks he knows a great deal about food. Hoult portrays the diner who hopes to impress the chef with his vast food acumen. He's eager to genuflect at Slowik's culinary altar.

        Diners also include a powerful career-making food critic (Janet McTeer) and the editor (Paul Adlestein) who publishes her work. 

       A table of young tech execs (Rob Yang, Arturo Castro, and Mark St. Cyr)  tosses around credit cards with the kind of abandon that lets everyone know they believe in their own sense of entitlement.

      A memorably scary Hong Chau portrays the stern maitre d of the restaurant Hawthorne. She greets guests, gives them a quick tour of the island, and otherwise informs them of the rules by which they must abide if they're to get the most out of their dining experience.

      The meals are amusing. A lone scallop served on a rock drawn from the sea, for example. Or how about a bread course distinguished by the absence of bread? The guests (only 12 are allowed) pay $1250 per person for the evening.

      Aside from Taylor-Joy's outspoken character, most of the guests are pretentious jerks. The screenplay by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy leads these exemplars of privilege to their well-deserved, often violent comeuppances.

       Fiennes makes an imposing dictatorial chef, who regards himself as an artist. Slowik instructs patrons that they must taste, not eat. People aren't eating meals, they’re sampling food conceptions, many mimicking the ambitions of “molecular”  gastronomy.

       A study in austere modernism, restaurant Hawthorne isn't just a place to eat, it's the physical embodiment of rarified consumer aspiration, which is pretty much what the movie’s about — not exactly a theme on which to feast but sufficient for some tasty grazing.