Asphalt City(2024)

Plot Summary

• Rookie New York City Fire Department (FDNY) paramedic Ollie Cross arrives in the chaotic aftermath of a gang shooting. He triages a foot wound, then is directed to a critically injured victim. Veteran paramedic Gene Rutkovsky leads Cross through the man's treatment but the patient dies during transport.The following day, Cross and Rutkovsky are called to a dog bite injury of a child, which has inflamed tempers at a community gym. Cross tries to defuse the situation by taking the dog away, but a man threatens him at gunpoint and kills the dog. Later, Cross suffers incessant verbal abuse from a junkie being transported to hospital, and helps to perform a difficult tracheal incubation in a butchers.Cross explains to Rutkovsky that he's living in a tiny apartment with two roommates to save money while studying to retake the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). Cross becomes irate when he finds Lafontaine has put the dead dog in his locker. He goes out to a club and begins a sexual relationship with Clara.Rutkovsky successfully defibrillates a patient, and they good-naturally take verbal abuse from an older drunk woman. Cross reveals that as a child he watched his mother die in the bath with self-inflicted deep wrist injuries. Rutkovsky talks about overworking, which ruined several of his marriages, and that he was a September 11 responder.Called to a woman injured in a fall, Cross and Rutkovsky discover an obvious domestic assault. They almost come to blows with the victim's overbearing husband when police arrive and intercede. Rutkovsky is reported for accidentally hitting a police officer. He takes leave to be with his young daughter Sylvie before his ex-wife Nancy moves them upstate to live with her new boyfriend. Partnered with Lafontaine, Cross is sent alone to discover a rotting corpse in the bathtub of a decrepit apartment, swarming with flies; the experience affects Cross's relationship with Clara.When Rutkovsky returns, they are called to a shelter for a woman in labor, hoping they might deliver a baby. Instead, they arrive to Nia passed-out after prematurely delivering the baby during a heroin overdose. Rutkovsky says the baby is stillborn and takes it to another room while Cross treats Nia. When she regains consciousness, Nia says that she had been sober during the pregnancy but took heroin due to childbirth pain. Rutkovsky returns without the baby and they prepare to take Nia to the hospital when another paramedic team arrive, find the baby, and resuscitate it. Cross covers for Rutkovsky at a department debriefing and receives a reprimand while Rutkovsky is suspended.The next day, gang members persistently crowd Lafontaine and Cross, interfering with their ability to treat and move a patient. In the ambulance, Lafontaine searches the man and finds illegal drugs, then turns off the man's oxygen. Cross turns it back on, and Lafontaine protests that the drug dealer deserves to die and they can decide who survives transport, implying that Rutkovsky feels the same way. Later, Cross chokes Clara during sex and she severs their relationship. Lafontaine solicits Cross's help in beating a young drug dealer but instead Cross hits Lafontaine, to the latter's encouragement.Cross retakes the MCAT but is distracted by his experiences. He meets with Rutkovsky and they fight over the practice of withholding treatment. Rutkovsky calls Cross a coward for not doing what he knows is right, while Cross counters that denying treatment is tantamount to murder.Cross is partnered with Verdis and they are called to a boy having a painful seizure but his religious father denies treatment. Verdis advises Cross that with the pressures of the job, they have to look out for each other. They are called for a jumper at Rutkovsky's address and they find him dead. Cross has to be restrained by other paramedics, breaks down, and contemplates suicide.A year later, Cross visits Nia at a drug rehabilitation center and apologizes, saying that he became a paramedic for the best reasons but on that day he did the exact opposite. Still working as a paramedic, he breaks protocol to go into a burning building and incubates a girl who he is able to rescue. (thanks to Wikipedi)

Storyline

• Asphalt City follows Ollie Cross (Tye Sheridan), a young paramedic assigned to the NYC night shift with an uncompromising and seasoned partner Gene Rutkovsky (Sean Penn). The dark nights reveal a city in crisis; Rutkovsky guides Cross, as each 911 call is often dangerous and uncertain, putting their lives on the line every day to help others. Cross soon discovers firsthand the chaos and awe of a job that careens from harrowing to heartfelt, testing his relationship with Rutkovsky and the ethical ambiguity that can be the difference between life and death.