Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

inspectors71 It isn't just Raquel Welch's chest that's loaded up with silicone. Peter Yates' putrid Mother, Juggs, and Speed makes you feel as if you've been loaded to the bursting point with those little cylinders of silicate that you'll find in packages of stereo equipment and beef jerky. You feel scratchy, dried-out, and polluted.Yech! Riding in an ambulance has never been anywhere near the top of my list of fun things to do, but after watching MJS, the story of rival ambulance companies battling each other in LA, I'd rather let the hospital come to me.Read the other reviews for the plot. I'm here to tell you this is a stupid and vulgar movie that wastes the talents of Bill Cosby, Harvey Keitel, and about two dozen easily recognizable character actors. Who'd accuse Welch of having talent to waste? Yates tries for topicality and rage-against-the-machine humor and all he gets is the high point of the movie, Raquel trying to settle down some poor shlub who's accidentally gotten his . . . well, you know . . . zipped up into his pants. Imagine the humor of trying to get a male appendage to deflate with 38Ds staring you in the face.Ha! The only thing worth watching or listening to is Cosby's music as he drives across and ruins a golf course to scoop up a heart attack victim.The song is called "Get the Funk Outta My Face." Good advice for this movie!

jconder45 In a domestic, peacetime context, and it's partially successful. The same existential, near-nihilistic ethos (competency is pretty much the only acknowledged value) as that in "M*A*S*H" pervades here. Bill Cosby is basically a black Hawkeye Pierce. Despite several nods to 70's feminism, the "Jugs" character is basically another Lt. Dish. And Larry Hagman's character is a straight knock-off of Frank Burns, with male chauvinism substituted for religious fundamentalism. Nevertheless, many of the gags and much of the dialogue are (usually darkly) hilarious. The film does convey the tragi-comic atmosphere of the inner city, much like Scorcese's "Bringing Out the Dead." The acting is generally superb.

vincewarde Interestingly enough I was certified as an EMT in July of 1976. Much of what takes place in the movie was hype with some basis in fact. During this time EMS was in flux. The requirement for EMT certification went into effect in California in July of 1976. Between then and 1986 when I left the business due to injury, tons of things changed. In those years Paramedic Certification became universal, companies merged and merged again, working conditions improved dramatically (my hours were cut in half and my pay doubled). Generally everything in private EMS became much more professional. And women became commonplace. Few industries changed so quickly.I might say that to a lesser degree, the same thing happened during the same time frame with Fire Departments, especially Rural, Volunteer and Reserve Departments.What I like the most is the portrayal of what EMS workers go through, including the risks they take and the emotions the experience.All in all, it's one of my favorite films!

Woodyanders Long before weary, burnt-out Nicholas Cage trolled around a crack-ravaged Hell's Kitchen in search of spiritual redemption in Martin Scorsese's hauntingly gloomy "Bringing Out the Dead" the choice happening trio of Billy Cosby, Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel pounded an outrageously freaky, stressful and eventful Los Angeles beat as harried paramedics working for a low-rent ambulance service in this darkly humorous, often quirky and hugely underrated "M.A.S.H."-style seriocomic sleeper.Bill Cosby, prior to his sad degeneration into terminally cutesy middle-of-the-road blandness in the 80's with the lamentable "The Cosby Show," is in fine, funky form as hip, assured, sardonic crackerjack wheelman and smartaleck supreme Mother (next to the super, hard-boiled, unjustly neglected private eye picture "Hickey and Boggs" this flick rates as the coolest feature the Cos ever acted in), the phenomenally gorgeous Raquel Welch excels in an all-too-rare substantial part as stand-offish, yet still desirable dispatcher Jugs, and Harvey Keitel contributes his usual solid performance as moody ex-cop Speed. The eclectic supporting cast is likewise smack dab on the money excellent: Allen Garfield as the antsy, frazzle-nerved ambulance service owner, Larry Hagman as a smarmy, desperate libidinous loser, Bruce Davison as a naive rookie, L.Q. Jones as a laid-back local lawman, Toni Basil as a shotgun-wielding heroin addict, Dick Butkus as an amiable good ol' boy cowboy, and the ever-divine Severn Darden doing a deft reprise of his shameless shyster lawyer role from "Cisco Pike."Director Peter Yates, working from Tom Mankiewicz's sharp, brash, wildly episodic script, keeps the pace storming along at a furiously dynamic clip, staging car crashes with considerable aplomb and boldly veering the tone from hilariously raucous to alarmingly serious with frequently on-target, sometimes surprising and always genuinely eccentric results. Ralph Woolsey's glittering nighttime cinematography and the groovy, lively, pulsating soul score vividly capture the harrowing nonstop lunacy of both inner city blight and the intrinsic highly intensified pressure found in the paramedic profession. The loose, easy and funny camaraderie between Cosby, Welch and Keitel in particular really hits the spot something sweet. There's no denying that they make for a pretty unlikely threesome -- and it's the very oddballness of this engagingly flaky bunch which in turn gives the film its irresistibly off-center appeal.