Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan star in the medical thriller (Picture: David Ungaro)
Black Flies is the type of relentlessly gruesome drama it’s perhaps best to avoid watching on a full stomach.
Starring Tye Sheridan (X-Men, Ready Player One) as rookie paramedic Ollie Cross in New York who is taken under the wing of grizzled veteran Rutkovsky, played by Sean Penn, when they are paired up for shifts, it not only exposes the seedy underbelly of emergency calls in deprived neighbourhoods but shoves them under the audiences’ noses repeatedly.
Based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Shannon Burke, himself a former New York City Fire Department emergency responder, Black Flies certainly rings true when it comes to the pressure and nature of such a tough career.
Sheridan gives a commendable performance as Ollie, on the job while he tries to pass the US medical school admission test.
Not only is he constantly confronted with the brutality of calls involving gang shootings and aggression, unwilling patients who’ve overdosed and – in one truly blood-soaked scene – a premature labour, but he also has to contend with the brutality of his colleagues too.
Their harshness has increased thanks to years on the demanding job, with little patience for someone wet behind the ears.
Sheridan plays rookie paramedic Ollie Cross, who struggles on the job (Picture: David Ungaro/Black Flies)
Nowhere is this better emphasised in Michael Pitt’s (Boardwalk Empire, Hannibal) quite frankly psychotic EMT who likes to play god as soon as his patient is safely behind the closed doors of his ambulance.
Black Flies also doesn’t shy away from the poor pay for paramedics in the US either, with Rutkovsky making reference to a past second career for a private outfit simultaneously, while also working in his ‘main career’ with a family member on an air conditioning business.
Meanwhile Ollie lives in a glorified squat in a rough area as that’s all he can afford working one job while he studies.
Director Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire has attracted an impressive cast for the film, which also includes Katherine Waterston as Rutkovsky’s ‘most recent’ ex-wife, a hard-faced Brooklynite, and boxing star Mike Tyson, continuing his emerging acting career in a film with a touch more gravitas than, say, The Hangover.
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He plays the smallish role of Chief Burroughs, who generally looks overly-stressed and under pressure, but plays it commendably straight.
The power of Black Flies comes from its central duo though, with Penn somehow making the toothpick-chewing cliché work for Rutkovsky, a man of not so many words but very many layers who at least gives Ollie the time of day (or night, as it were).
And with Sheridan, Ollie is the perfect wide-eyed audience surrogate, forcing himself to do the job but cracking under the relentless weight of it.
The movie wallows in the gruesome nature of the job, as well as the toll it takes mentally (Picture: David Ungaro/Black Flies)
It’s safe to say that the movie, which is in contention for the 2023 Palme d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, does not come with the happiest ending, finishing with quite a shock after subjecting viewers to two hours of blood-spattered gore.
Black Flies is a grim tale, and not a recommended watch for the more delicate cinema fan, but its message and lack of subtlety certainly hit home.
A UK release date for Black Flies has yet to be announced.
Strap in tight for this one.
