Black Flies

Some excellent acting all round (even Mike Tyson was believable), and not enough props given to the actor that played Lafontaine, Michael Pitt.

While I don't need a film neatly served up to me, there was just a little too much flip-flopping around, including things that are brought up and never explained- eg. Swapping Cross and Rutkovsky around with who took the baby, so you are uncertain for a while, who did what.

The misery is relentless- the hostility from the patients with mental illness or other issues I sort of get (the amount of gang members they pick up, and have to deal with abuse from their friends is unreal), but constant harassment/bullying from their own team not to mention some of the police. Is it really this dysfunctional?

Still, enjoyed the film nonetheless, always good to see something original about a role we don't see on the silver screen that often.

Nice to see Gbenga Akinnagbe (Chris Partlow from The Wire), albeit in a small role.

As someone who does this for a living, this was pretty close to the mark. Although the amount of tragedy and grief we see the protagonist experience in his first few weeks is somewhat more than a senior paramedic would see in an entire career, it was necessary in order to tell the story and depict what EMS workers go through in a two hour time limit. Yes, some scenes were exaggerated, but it is no secret that over a career as a paramedic, these are things you WILL see, for sure. Legitimately.

The acting was absolutely superb - on all accounts. The chemistry between Tye Sheridan and Sean Penn was incredible. Sean Penn did such a good job here, he really sold his role with Rutkovsky. Tye Sheridan was a fantastic protagonist who really captured the truth of what it feels like starting in EMS in NYC. The place really is a jungle out there. Direction was great. A near perfect film - just some minor gaps in the story telling that , honestly, I forgot about.

I'm not sure how this movie has a low score. This was a very solid 8/10, IMO.

Sean Penn is great in this dark New York City drama. The film is centered around two paramedics one seasoned and one new to the game that then become partners. They work the overnight shift in New York City as paramedics, so they see some crazy intense stuff along the way. Either I am missing it or I am not properly following it, but the film does not seem to have much of a plot other than to shoe how gritty the city is to these paramedics and it shows two men young and older on how they deal with it. I don't think the plot was there until about the last 30 minutes which is a huge flaw of this film.

I can't tell if that's a step up for Mike or a step down for Sean Penn. Unfortunately for Penn, I need to say the latter. This movie came and went without any promotion for it, despite what a great film it is. Tye Sheridan got to flex his acting muscle sparing with Sean Penn and of course Mike Tyson, who was fit for the role so it made sense. The film kept reminding me of the Martina Scorsese film Brining up the Dead, which starred Nicolas Cage in a role similar to Sean Penn, in fact, the concept of both movies almost makes Asphalt City a sequel. It does not help that there are not enough movies about the subject to think otherwise.

Anyway, this movie is too good to be hidden away like it seems to be.

There is absolutely no doubt that 'Black Flies' is a grim movie. I confess I hadn't even heard of it and it seems to have slipped under the radar but for all of it's gloom and doom it is well worth watching. One thing the movie does very well is to make the viewer fully aware of just how horrendous being a paramedic can be and boy will you respect them more after this.

This is a well acted film with the two leads showing good chemistry and at times some ad-libbing if I'm not mistaken. One thing I absolutely hated though is the totally unnecessary nudity from one actress which added nothing to the movie apart from cheap thrills. It got to the stage where I was actually yelling at the screen 'put some cloths on love for crying out loud'. Rant over, this is a good effort, bleak but pretty decent.