Penn has rarely seemed as cruddy and crestfallen as he does here, playing a vet paramedic named Gene Rutkovsky who’s only a divorce or two away from tying the late Larry King’s record. Working the night shift in crime-ridden Brownsville and East New York, he tries to save all the gunshot and overdose victims his NYFD ambulance

Premiering in competition Thursday at the Cannes Film Festival, Black Flies stars Sean Penn as a grizzled veteran paramedic known as “Rut” now on the nighttime beat with rookie partner Cross, played with conviction by Tye Sheridan, as they answer the call in the largely rundown neighborhood of Brownsville in Brooklyn. It is the classic Hollywood setup

“Black Flies,” the Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan film about emergency medical first responders, smacked the Cannes Film Festival in the face with a brutal world premiere on Thursday.

Created by Abdullah Saeed, the half-hour, 10-episode series stars Asif Ali and Saagar Shaikh as Mir and Raj Dar, respectively. When their convenience-store magnate father suddenly dies, the pampered Pakistani-American Dar brothers lose everything and are forced to reckon with their Baba’s secret life of crime as they attempt to take up his mantle in the underworld.