It’s hardly heretical to say that the American healthcare system, as we know it, is a shambles. Not only for the poor people who have to use it, with predatory insurance companies charging high premiums for rock-bottom care, mind you; it’s also hell for the everyday folks who work in the industry. And few are more put-upon than paramedics, who, as Rainn Wilson explains to camera in the opening minutes of the new medical dramedy “Code 3,” have to be “your best friend on your worst day.” The hustle and bustle of medical drama is innately cinematic, of course; take a look at any given network hospital procedural, or (in a comparison that any film, much less “Code 3,” would wither under) Martin Scorsese’s hypnotic “Bringing Out the Dead.” But while Christopher Leone’s film naturally suffers when standing next to that masterpiece, it has a curious command of tone and a welcome sincerity that make its gestures at comedy land with starker impact.
Co-written by Leone and Patrick Pianezza (who drew from his decade-plus experience as a paramedic), “Code 3” centers on Randy (Wilson), an overworked, burnt-out EMT in Los Angeles, who finds himself working the last 24-hour shift before he gets to jump off the eighteen-year hamster wheel of paramedic work for a cushy job at a medical insurance company. The move comes not a moment too soon; Randy’s perpetually exhausted, temperamental, and not easy to work with—the only other EMT who will still ride with him is Mike (Lil Rel Howery), who at least has a healthier set of coping mechanisms to deal with the job in all its dehumanizing glory.
“Code 3” follows Randy and Mike, alongside new recruit Jessica (Aimee Carrero), a savvy, idealistic medical pro set to shadow them on their shift, as they weather the next 24 hours, making one stop after another for people who either can’t, won’t, or in some cases shouldn’t be helped. Even when they do get their patients to the emergency room, they must contend with the ball-busting emergency surgeon, played by Rob Riggle with a signature brusqueness that feels like a comedic foil until he gives you a glimpse at how Sisyphean his own job seems. “I gotta get back to never being done,” he barks to Randy, after explaining that his six-figure income comes with soul-crushing responsibilities, it’s easy for the other side of the stretcher to forget.
If this hardly sounds like the stuff of gut-busting comedy, you’d be at least partially right; despite the comic pedigree of its cast, “Code 3” steers a bit more down the Adam McKay “Big Short” route than something more slapstick like “Reno 911!” The life of a paramedic is intense, after all, as each new stop on Randy, Mike, and Jessica’s shift offers another episode in abject misery. At first, it’s lighter, quainter encounters like a half-naked unhoused man off his meds whose screaming about how he’s “Satan and his only messenger” mostly just means he’s hungry; Wilson and Howery bounce off each other nicely in these moments, alongside charmingly improvised bits about a Subway order gone wrong. But we learn that all this laughing and carrying on is simply sugar sprinkled in a gaping wound, as “Code 3” sends them on ever more harrowing and tragic calls. You have to laugh, it seems, to keep from crying at all the blood, and death, and devastation around you.
The film claims that its events are drawn from a real 24-hour period in Pianezza’s life, and “Code 3” feels drawn from the man’s specific world-weary voice and the exceptional circumstances of that day in ways that feel remarkable, if a bit pithy. At times, the script feels as though it started as a first-person memoir, as Wilson’s frequent asides through the fourth wall, and his instructions to Jessica, clue us in on the realities of paramedic practice and the protocols that follow. His monologues feel like equal parts confessional and warning; he feels dead inside, and angry at the world (as one late-film tirade, vulgar and embittered in ways that evoke the big speech in “25th Hour,” indicates), and he has no other choice but to hope and pray that his work makes a difference.
To his credit, Wilson plays these moments with a welcome unease, and his innate dryness as a performer allows him to flit between grim joke and exhausted confession with admirable fluidity; he’s a guy who cares, even as every bone in his body tells him to keep a dispassionate distance from the people whose lives he holds in his hands. There’s something of his character from “Super” in his portrayal of Randy, a man disgusted by the state of the world but who believes, maybe foolishly, that he has the temperament to do something about it. Wilson calibrates his beady-eyed cynicism and wry sensibilities perfectly here; it might secretly be one of his best performances.
There are many moments where “Code 3″‘s tonal fluidity feels rockier; one wonders whether the film would have worked out more consistently if it had picked a lane. But then you get to scenes where Randy, Mike, and Jessica play along with a frequent patient of theirs named Charlie as he navigates a mental health crisis, and their quirky roleplay comedy gives way to a tense standoff as the police arrive and threaten to offset his dissociative episode. It’s a tour de force scene, with even Howery demonstrating astonishing gentleness and pathos as he tries mightily to keep Charlie, who is Black, alive against a trigger-happy pair of cops. There’s a beating heart at the center of this film that helps wallpaper over its flaws, a call for sincere action in a cruel and unjust world filled with people who, even as they may fight you, need your care.
