Prime Video has just added an extremely tense thriller movie

Stephen Porzio

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Starring an Oscar-winning actor, the film is climbing up the streaming service’s top 10.

Black Flies, an extremely dark and tense thriller drama movie, is climbing up Prime Video’s top 10 movie chart in the UK and Ireland.

Known in some territories as Asphalt City, the film follows Ollie Cross (Tye Sheridan, Ready Player One), a young paramedic assigned to the New York City night shift with an uncompromising and seasoned partner named Gene Rutkovsky (Oscar-winner Sean Penn, Mystic River).

“The dark nights reveal a city in crisis,” the plot synopsis reads. “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.”

Directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire (A Prayer Before Dawn), Black Flies’ cast also includes Gbenga Akinnagbe (Fast Charlie), Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice), Kali Reis (True Detective: Night Country), Michael Pitt (Boardwalk Empire) and former boxer Mike Tyson as Cross and Rutkovsky’s chief.

And while the reviews for the movie have been for the most part mixed, nearly all critics are in agreement about one thing – the film is an extremely gritty and tense depiction of what emergency medical technicians can face in their course of their work.

You can read a sample of some positive write-ups for Black Flies right here:

Chicago Sun-Times: “Not for one second, not for one frame, does director Jean Stéphane’s bruising and bloody New York City drama thriller drive even near the neighbourhood of subtlety. This is a stark, pitch-black, violent and gruesome waking nightmare of a story.”

Daily Telegraph (UK): “Arrestingly grim, Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s corpses-and-all look at the life of a rookie first responder is a scuzzyily compelling ride.”

Film Authority: “An extreme film, hard to watch at times, but with less of the self-appointed poetry of Martin Scorsese’s Bringing out the Dead and a darker, more nihilistic streak that sticks in your mind.”

ScreenAnarchy: “Finds its power reflecting the brutal level of stress inherent in this profession… Sauvaire makes his mission explicit: to raise awareness about those paramedics who are completely overwhelmed. That’s something the filmmaker achieves.”

Black Flies is available to watch now in the UK and Ireland on Prime Video.

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