Popular reviews

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  Review by Superargo ★★★★ 1

  another gritty pre-millennial melodrama that smacks you in the face with its timeliness in summer 2020. public servants who don’t give a shit about serving or the public; they just care about running out the clock so they can hurry along to their next drug purchase. if you’re a woman who’s passed out in their ambulance, they’re gonna peek under your shirt. if you’re an old man complaining of chest pains, they’re gonna shoot your dog full of tranquilizers and steal your VCR before giving you a couple tabs of antacid.

  you could argue that staying high & wasted is so important to these guys because of all the ugliness they witness in their jobs, except that most of that ugliness—what…

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  Review by Paddy Feehan ★★★★

  The poster made me think I was going to watch a horror film. What I didn’t expect was pretty crazy ride with two ambulance drivers that spend their days off their tits on copious amounts of drugs. The film plays like the journey of an addict. It’s fun and enjoyable at first but then the mood suddenly changes as the consequences of their addiction begin to unfold. This is a really good film that has an obvious low budget but through good performances, particularly Susan Traylor, and a well told story, this is above you’re average straight to video fodder.

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  Review by Nick Dets ★★★

  Pre-Bringing Out The Dead, this chronicled the adrenaline-charged occupation of big city EMT’s in a trashier aesthetic. Like Scorcese’s film, it’s an addiction drama about guilt, told with a fast pace and lots of lurid mini-episodes. Unfortunately it’s pretty shallow, with a tendency to wallow in filthy go-nowhere subplots (WTF is up with that drug-cooking neighbor bit?) instead of productively studying its characters’ demons. Still, it’s an entertaining, well-acted drama that conjures a thrilling if self-consciously *edgy* vision of a hellish underworld.

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  Review by MickeyShults ★★★★

  This is one of those cases where a movie’s screenplay is far better than the movie itself. Scott Ziehl’s camera work is often uninspired and there are several poor editing choices. But despite its flaws, the story is original and intense, all of the acting is fantastic, and you end up learning a lot about paramedics and the sudden spiral into drug addiction.

  “Broken Vessels” is not nearly as impactful as the ambulance drama “Bringing Out the Dead” that would come out the following year (Ziehl has nothing on Scorsese or Schrader), but it does seem to have more insight into the lives of EMT drivers.

  
  Favorite shot: The druggie’s POV of Tom and Jimmy coming into focus.

  Favorite line: “Oh, my dick just fell off. What do you think!”

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  Review by Garrett ★★★★

  One of the best never seen movies of the 90s. A film about public servants that aren’t concerned with helping people and instead revel in excess, is unfortunately still is relevant to this day.

  Jason London (Dazed and Confused) gives his best work as an actor and Todd Field (Director of Tar) is intensely engaging. Also love seeing the great James Hong in anything, even a smaller role like this. Check this out, I dropped the link so you can watch this right now because right now this is at less than 100 ratings, and that's not really fair.

  youtu.be/Q9OYaVk4z2Y?si=qif_iZmGhlcLBv3m

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  Review by binxb ★★★½

  So many indies came out in the 90’s that a lot of solid movies fell through the cracks. Not a masterpiece but definitely worth a watch.

  Kim’s vhs

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  Review by Joe Wawrzyniak ★★★★

  One of the great unsung indie drama thriller sleeper gems of the 1990's, this film about two paramedics who embark on a downward spiral of drug addiction and self-destruction due to the high pressure nature of their thankless job packs an incredibly potent emotional punch. Jason London as the more naive of the pair brings an endearingly boyish charm to his role. Todd Field gives a mesmerizing performance as a hard-bitten cynic who serves as a kind of twisted mentor to London.

  Director/cowriter Scott Ziehl takes the viewer on an exhilaratingly frantic cinematic trip complete with a dark despairing tone, a fractured editing style, occasionally hallucinatory visuals, and a wickedly funny sense of biting black humor. Moreover, this movie thankfully…

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  Review by Red Eye Reviews ★★★½

  I actually prefer this to Bringing Out the Dead as it's grittier and dirtier, but to mention is spot on when it comes to drug addiction and its long-term effects. BOTD is too melodramatic, where this is more grounded in reality.

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  Review by Scott Faulkner

  Should have been called Collapsed Veins.

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  Review by FilmFan1971 ★★★½

  It’s always the way. First Mother, Juggs and Speed in 1976, then you wait twenty-four years for another movie about whacked-out ambulance drivers, and then two come along at once. As such, Broken Vessels is doomed to suffer ‘Poor Man’s Bringing Out The Dead’- type comparisons, despite being released first in the States and having its release here delayed by a good couple of months. Admittedly, the differences between them are slight - the Scorsese film was set in New York, Broken Vessels takes place in LA – but, despite the lower budget and ‘no stars, just talent’ casting, this deserves to be seen on its own merits and actually bears more relation to Trainspotting in terms of its themes…

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  Review by Dan O'Neill ★★★

  Of course Ron Jeremy's in this!

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  Review by Dmitry_Karpyuk ★★★

  На удивление реалистичное бытописание двух торчков-врачей скорой. Снято дёшево и сердито, зато за год до "Воскрешая мертвецов" ребята гоняют на машине с мигалкой, накурившись крэка, и орут в окно: "Fuck you!". Еще они промышляют воровством в домах пациентов и постоянно дико упарываются, причем главный герой приходит на работу относительно невинным, попадает под влияние напарника и со свистом скользит вниз по наклонной. Забавное появление Рона Джереми в камео.