Ambulance (2022)
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza Gonzalez, Kei O’Donnell
Primary genre: Action
Secondary genre: Thriller
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After the much maligned but somewhat fun in a totally-secret-guilty-pleasure-way “6 Underground” (2019), it is surprising to see Captain - Michael Bay - America return to smaller action vehicles without oversized production budgets and scripts that bear the cohesion of a 10-year-old mind.
“Ambulance”, a remake of an average Danish film with the same name, bears a more realistic feel to it as opposed to the majority of Bay’s directional outputs. Opening with his own tribute to Michael Mann’s botched bank robbery from “Heat“ (1995), Bay directs enthusiastically and relentlessly a subsequent escape attempt that involves an…ambulance. What follows is a lengthy and chaotic chase in the streets of LA that rarely pauses for breath. Lacking an obvious irony to the on-screen proceedings, a number of script stretches seek to justify a plain concept that veers towards excessive unbelievability (and parody) which in real life should have finished the moment it started. By the time the much delayed climax arrives, you all feel that it was for nothing considering there is a 136 minute running time of cars almost going in circles.
This is perhaps the biggest problem of “Ambulance”. It takes itself way too seriously, and if it was not for some surprisingly effective humor, you might be finding yourself pulling your hair in desperation. Yet, there are moments of mindless joy to be found here. Elevated by Bay’s appropriately frenetic direction, his employment of novel drone shots provide a unique way of framing the exploding and crashing vehicular mayhem dynamically along with his expected top notch technical finesse.
Bay extends his traditional love-it-or-hate-it patriotism towards police officers and first responders minimizing on screen civilian and law enforcement casualties. Despite an overindulgence with all the cars, sirens, yelling and the bombastic score of Lorne Balfe, his focus is fixated towards an interesting relationship between the two step-brothers which mostly remains unexplored. Relying less in profanity and crude jokes (as well as a loss of irony in certain moments), Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II remain the focal point of the film that unfortunately do not have much depth besides typical characterizations. The script takes the high moral ground in surprisingly murky areas that might leave some dumbfounded. It does not help that besides Gyllenhaal who seems to be having the time of his life, the rest of the cast give telegraphic good performances for this type of feature film muttering cliché lines in a vortex of yells, awkward pauses and tears.
At the end of the day, “Ambulance” will not win Bay any awards (or new fans) because it does not need to. It is an excessive exercise at occasionally pointless high octane car-astrophe which could have been easily benefitted from a 40 minute trim. It still remains to be seen though whether Bay eventually will direct a script that can incorporate all of his aesthetic elements with real dramatic pathos and stakes. Perhaps then his next feature might be even more rounded and collected.
Lengthy, uneven but occasionally fun
+Relentless and frenetic
+Awesome vehicular mayhem
+Provided by some cool drone shots
+Jake Gyllenhaal is having a blast
+Less Bayisms in this one
+Bombastic score by Lorne Balfe
-Which might bother some
-Rest of the cast are underwhelming
-Too long
-Anti-climatic and almost parodic end
-Murky morality ground