Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire's "Asphalt City" is a film that injects its nearly nonstop intensity into the the veins of the audience from the first shot. The director sees the darker side of the New York City night as a whacked-out boulevard of death awash in the pulsating red lights of the ambulances, cop cars, and fire engines that cut through the detritus of the city.

Tye Sheridan is Ollie Cross, a rookie paramedic in his first few weeks on the job. Working on his MCAT in the hope of being a doctor. Ollie rides in an ambulance all over the East New Yor

In “Black Flies” the full-frontal reality of two nighttime paramedics grabs you at the throat and doesn’t let go. The new Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire film is an infernal ride of double-shifts and bullying and death into the belly of the beast, the film pops, hits hard, the image is jumpy, the screams are loud, it’s a pressure-cooker, I came out of there traumatized and a little shaken. This is not the New York City I know. Had an inkling.

Such is Spielberg’s draw that even film lovers with little interest in dystopia or sci-fi hesitate only a couple of days before dutifully making their way to the nearest movie theater. So, does it deserve the praise? Not really. Special CGI-enhanced effects, spectacular as they are, pall after a while and become repetitive although to the end there are lovely surprising images such as the disco scene with the dancing couples floating in an endless colorful vortex.

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