Ambulance review

AMBULANCE:

ANOTHER “BAYHEM-FILLED” ACTION EXTRAVAGANZA, BUT WITH A SURPRISING AMOUNT OF TENSION AND HEART! 

By Nico Beland

Movie Review: *** out of 4

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, and Eiza González in Michael Bay’s Ambulance

 

            A couple of bank robbers hijack an ambulance and all Hell breaks loose in Ambulance, the new film directed by Michael Bay (The Rock, The Island, Transformers franchise) and the director’s first theatrically released film since 2017’s Transformers: The Last Knight. In a world where film buffs love to rip this guy apart for how he ruined the Transformers franchise, I’m one of the few who’s mostly indifferent to him, I don’t love him, but I don’t hate him either. 

            Sure, he’s made movies before that I hated like some of the Transformers sequels, Pearl Harbor, and Bad Boys II, but he also made a lot that I was entertained by (The Rock, Bad Boys 1, The Island, Transformers 1, 13 Hours, etc.). With him, I always know what kind of movie it’ll be but I’m not 100% sure whether it’s going to be good or bad. 

            Which leads us to Ambulance, which I was intrigued by when I first saw the trailer, though I will admit a lot of it looked very shaky, even for a Michael Bay film with a lot of fast editing, moving cameras, and sweeping shots of the city. However, it also looked like it was going to be heavy on emotion and characters and if it’s anything like Bay’s 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, I’m all in. 

            After seeing the movie, I can say that it lives up to the trailers and I mean that in a positive way. It’s not a great movie, but I was very entertained by it and emotionally invested in the story and characters, which is strange given that this man is known for blowing sh*t up. 

            The film is set in Los Angeles and follows Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II-Aquaman, Candyman (2021), The Matrix Resurrections), a down on his luck war veteran and family man who is desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills. He asks for help from his adoptive brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal-Brokeback Mountain, Prisoners, Spider-Man: Far From Home) who is a notorious bank robber and he gives him the perfect opportunity to get the money he needs, by participating in a high-stakes bank robbery. 

            But when the heist goes horribly wrong, the two brothers hijack an ambulance with a wounded cop clinging for his life and ace EMT, Cam Thompson (Eiza González-Baby Driver, Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Godzilla VS Kong) onboard. In a never-ending, high-speed car chase, Will and Danny will need to evade a massive, city-wide law enforcement response, keep both hostages alive, and try to not kill each other in the most insane escape in L.A. history. 

            The film also stars Garret Dillahunt (Fear the Walking Dead, Looper, 12 Years a Slave) as Captain Monroe, Keir O’Donnell (Wedding Crashers, The Break-Up, American Sniper) as FBI Agent Anson Clark, Jackson White (Mrs. Fletcher, SPF-18) as Officer Zach, Moses Ingram (The Queen’s Gambit, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Obi-Wan Kenobi) as Amy Sharp, Colin Woodell (Unfriended: Dark Web, The Originals, The Call of the Wild (2020)) as EMT Scott, A Martinez (General Hospital, The Cowboys, Curse of Chucky) as Papi, Jesse Garcia (The Shield, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Re-Kill) as Roberto, Jose Pablo Cantillo (Crank, Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead) as Jesus, Wale as Castro, and Victor Gojcaj (The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009), Unstoppable, The Forger) as Victor. 

            Overall, Ambulance is a tension-building, adrenaline pumping thrill ride and a long overdue return to form for Michael Bay. Granted, it does have a lot of his signature tropes that would normally get annoying after a while like shaky cams, fast editing, and overblown action sequences, but this is one of those times where all of that surprisingly works. 

            I think why Michael Bay’s directing style works in something like this and not in his Transformers sequels is that in Transformers, we want to appreciate the size and scope of what’s on the screen and his fast editing and shaky cameras distract from it, whereas with this it adds to the grittiness of what’s going on in the film. The movie is essentially a long car chase through the streets of L.A. with an ambulance so of course, Michael Bay is going to shake the camera, do a bunch of quick cuts, and cause some explosions and it never feels cluttered and you can make it all out. 

            So yeah, I guess this is Michael Bay’s equivalent of the Sonic the Hedgehog filmmakers redesigning Sonic after so much backlash. He listened to the criticisms people had with many of his films and toned some of his tropes down while still retaining a lot of them for his trademark filmmaking style. 

            The action sequences are really exhilarating and has a lot of tension and stakes, arguably the most impactful being a surgery scene inside the ambulance that needs to be performed while avoiding police. It was a life-or-death situation and it had me on the edge of my seat unsure of what the outcome was going to be. 

            I was also really invested in the characters and the actors’ performances; Jake Gyllenhaal is a treasure in this movie as a bank robber who shifts between being cool and charming to a full-on psychopath and you’re not always certain of what he’s going to do. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is also great as his adoptive brother who participates in the heist so he could provide for his family which adds a level of humanity to these criminals, and you do feel this brotherly bond between him and Gyllenhaal’s characters. 

            For me, the real standout is Eiza González as Cam who can be best described as a Michael Bay female character done right. Yes, she’s hot but she isn’t flaunting her body all the damn time nor is she an accessory for the male protagonists, she stands up for herself when in danger, has a likable personality, and she’s the one who performs the surgery during the chase, I’m hoping Bay will continue to model future female characters off of this one because it’s easily his best. 

            While I enjoyed this movie a lot, it isn’t a perfect film, there is still quite a bit of juvenile humor in it, most notably references to Bay’s other films like The Rock and Bad Boys that feel very forced (Thankfully, it isn’t nearly as obvious as putting a Bad Boys II poster up in the middle of a scene in Transformers 2!). Also, the climax is a bit underwhelming, and I felt it should have stopped after a certain point, but it kept going and I started to slightly check out. 

            Despite its flaws, Ambulance is a solid Michael Bay film that I strongly recommend checking out. I can’t promise a masterpiece, but if you’re looking for something reminiscent to Bay’s Bad Boys and The Rock days, take a ride on this “Ambulance” as soon as possible.