I always get excited for every new Michael Bay movie. I know I’ll be amused ironically or sometimes unironically. Where most modern blockbusters seem like a product by committee, his movies never lose their directorial vision. Granted, that vision can often have choppy editing and be far too bombastic to be grounded in reality, but they always have that Bayhem brand of insanity.
In Ambulance, Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a military vet who needs immediate funds to cover the costs for his wife’s upcoming surgery. He turns to his criminal brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), to borrow a large amount of cash. However, Danny ropes his brother into an immediate bank heist that is meant to go smoothly. Little do they know they are in a Michael Bay movie and that they’ll be in for the ride of their lives complete with high-speed chases, collisions, explosions and plenty of lens flare.
The titular ambulance they eventually carjack contains our EMT protagonist Cam (Eiza Gonzalez). She does her best to save a life and keep her own, as the vehicle they’re in is under constant pursuit by the LAPD and the FBI.
This is a remake of the 2005 Danish film, Ambulencen, which was just 80 minutes long. I want to see that version, as the concept of the movie feels like it could work in a tight time-frame. Sadly, Bay stretches out the process to over two hours 15 minutes. There’s a fun movie here, but it’s buried under 4-5 quick escapes and a tacked-on subplot about an LA crime syndicate.
The reasons the length of the movie feels so long is that you’re almost guaranteed to get a headache 40 minutes in. The music is unceasingly tense. The jitter cam, so often used by Bay, is also just as constant. On the plus side, you feel the sweat-inducing stress of fleeing the cops with little chance of success. However, it rarely takes the time to slow down and take a breath. Though when it does, you can be sure there will be an establishing low angle closeup of a character as the sunset shines behind them.
The highlight of Ambulance is in the performances. Jake Gyllenhaal knows just what type of movie he’s in and he plays Danny as an overly confident criminal who is deep down an unhinged shadow of his criminal father. While the movie forgets about Yahya’s Will for a while, he somehow adds a few layers to what seems like a cliche character that gets in over his head. Gonzalez has a silly character arc, but she acts far better than the script she is given.
Bay does not let down his target market for his brand of mayhem. He knows how to film a cop car flipping a few dozen times and it always feel fresh. There is one scene in particular where the ambulance takes the cops on a chase through an empty lot and the convenient car flips are actually hilarious and it felt like Bay was in on the joke.
If Ambulance were around 90 minutes, it could have been a joyride. Sadly, the extended runtime makes you feel like a hostage. The characters gave it their all, as did the director, but just like the camerawork, the focus is lost. This isn’t a bad movie by any means, but it seems destined for the Walmart $5 bin. C
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