Listen, Michael Bay is one of those directors that I really admire. You can watch his movie and just know "that is a Michael Bay movie!". He has a unique style and an absolute love for nonsensical action and explosions.
Here is Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen), a former Marine, on a frustrating phone call trying to get insurance approval for his wife’s lifesaving surgery. He’s getting nowhere so, with a kiss for his wife (Moses Ingram) and toddler son, Will rushes across town — this is Los Angeles — to meet his brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal). They haven’t seen each other for some time but brief flashbacks to their childhood suggest a deep bond. Will tells him he needs money. Danny says he has a job, but Will would need to come with him now, this instant, to steal $32 million from a federal bank.
Will goes from hold music to heist in under an hour — about the opening five minutes of Bay’s 136-minute film — and “Ambulance” doesn’t slowdown from there. The robbery fails to go according to its hurried and haphazard plan, and, like in Michael Mann’s “Heat,” a bank-job-gone-wrong spills out onto downtown Los Angeles streets. In the melee, Danny and Will scurry through the sprawling building and its subterranean parking garage with a cop (Jackson White) as hostage. In a struggle, Will reluctantly shoots him. Seemingly boxed in with squad cars descending all around, they sneak through by stealing the ambulance that has just picked up the very same policeman. With a steely and highly professional EMT (Eiza González) in the back tending to his wounds, the brothers flee through Los Angeles in a daylong chase.
Michael Bay is best known for his big budget, big screen epics. This one keeps lots of his spectacular sensibilities, but in a more limited environment. Ambulance is just delightfully unhinged in its experiment to see how much carnage can be caused by just one car chase.
The freewheeling nature of the movie also gives some of the performers room to play. And many of the supporting players are very good, particularly Garret Dillahunt, as the police captain leading the manhunt with one eye always on his dog, Nitro. González (who’s quickly piling up a very automotive filmography with “Baby Driver” and the “Fast and Furious” spinoff “Hobbs and Shaw”) keeps the antic “Ambulance” grounded. But more than anyone, Gyllenhaal, as a cheerful, nearly unhinged thief in a cashmere turtleneck, is having a grand time. He’s the manic engine driving “Ambulance.”
Ambulance is tailor made for the big screen. I learned absolutely NOTHING by watching it, and yet I was still amazed by the shear spectacle of it all. I have never done cocaine, but this film is what I imagine it must be like. An overwhelming and messy but still very entertaining experience, if you enjoy Michael Bay you are sure to enjoy this one!
Please make more movies with real stunts. Please make more movies like Ambulance
