Ambulance Ambulance

* * * R 2022, Mystery & thriller/Drama, 2h 16m

Two robbers steal an ambulance after their heist goes awry.

At top speed and with sirens wailing, Ambulance comes riding to the rescue for audiences facing an emergency shortage of Michael Bay action thrills.

Stars
Jake Gyllenhaal Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Eiza González

Official Trailer

Review

66% TOMATOMETER
AUDIENCE SCORE

Reviewed by JAKE WILSON

I've spent as much time railing against Michael Bay as the next film reviewer, but I'm prepared to give the devil his due: his films aren't the kind that could have been made by just anybody.

A minute or two into new action-thriller Ambulance, I was already ticking off the signature elements: the low angles and sweeping camera moves, the fascination with reflective surfaces, the achingly unfunny banter, the thing about American flags .

I even found myself wondering, reluctantly, if I'd been doing Bay an injustice. Yes, his style has all the restraint of a twoyear-old on a sugar high, but doesn't that give his films a certain redeeming energy? And isn't it preferable to the lacklustre anonymity that has overtaken so much blockbuster cinema? Ultimately, I can't respond to Ambulance with more than a shaky thumbsup , but if you're in the mood to tackle a Bay film with an open mind, this is as good a chance as you're likely to get.

One immediate plus is the absence of giant computer-generated robots: Bay was quoted recently saying he doesn't care for digital effects, which must have made completing five Transformers films something of a struggle. Instead, the starting-point is a solid action movie premise taken from a littleknown 2005 Danish film of the same title (which runs for a tidy 80 minutes. Bay's version is well over two hours).

In the aftermath of a bank robbery gone wrong, the ambulance in question is hijacked by two desperate brothers, Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), launching an epic chase through the streets of Los Angeles.

This pair could represent the two halves of Bay's own driven personality: Will is the relatively level-headed one at the wheel, Danny the hothead urging him on to ever greater recklessness.

Also on board is Cam (Eiza Gonzalez), a tough paramedic who is styled to resemble one of Bay's usual sports model types but turns out to have a whole backstory about getting addicted to speed and failing her medical exams (everybody in this movie has a backstory: let no one say Bay isn't interested in his characters as people).

Most crucially, there's Zach (Jackson White), a rookie cop who may be dying of his gunshot wounds in the back seat but serves meanwhile as a valuable hostage. The need to keep him alive eventually forces the untrained Cam to perform surgery with the ambulance still in motion, a gruesome sequence that is one of the less anticipated excesses.

That may sound like a spoiler, but there are plenty more climaxes to follow. I've not yet mentioned the whole law enforcement side of the story, involving a surly police captain (Garrett Dillahunt) and a smarmy FBI agent (Keir O'Donnell ) who went to college with Danny (more backstory), nor the family of Latino gangsters out of Breaking Bad.

Gyllenhaal does more bellowing than is usual for any actor who isn't Al Pacino and in general seems to relish the chance to work with a director unfamiliar with the phrase " too much'' . But the main pleasures come less from the drama than from motion for its own sake: the airborne camera racing alongside an elevated railway track, or weaving between skyscrapers that loom uncannily against blue sky, as if Bay was missing the Transformers after all.

At some point, it all becomes a blur, making it impossible to judge how long the film has been going, or how much longer there might be until the end. It's the same problem Bay always suffers: the need to ramp up every single moment leaves him no way to build a crescendo, and piling on more and more just leads to exhaustion.

But inducing this numb, exhausted feeling may be Bay's exact goal, his way of making us feel that we've had our money's worth. Again, justice where it's due: reports claim that Ambulance was made for just $40 million, by his standards little more than spare change. I can hardly believe this is correct - but if it is, I salute his ability to tire me out so much more thoroughly than most directors could with five times the budget.

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❊ Web Links ❊

➼ Ambulance 

➼ www.ambulance.movie






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