Ambulance (2022)
Rated R for intense violence, bloody images and language throughout
Score: 4 out of 5
And now, back to our regularly scheduled Bayhem, on the big
screen where it is made to be enjoyed. Michael Bay is a filmmaker with a very
checkered reputation, and deservedly so, but I’ve always been of the opinion
that when he’s on, he’s on. Beneath all his flamboyance and his
unfortunate detours into the Transformers series, his secret talent is
one that’s become increasingly rare in Hollywood in the age of CGI, filming
exciting action scenes using mostly practical effects without going horribly
overbudget. All his trademark excess is reserved for the screen; the sets of
his films are known for their discipline. (I’m still shocked that this movie
cost only $40 million to make and was his idea of a way to chill out between
bigger movies.) When he cares to, he not only knows how to make action scenes
exciting as hell in such a manner that you don’t really care about things like
coherence and set geography, he drapes it in pure style and sex appeal that
gets you aroused even if you don’t think that there’s anything on the
screen that should. What I’m saying is, Ambulance, a remake of a rather
more low-key 2005 Danish film, is Bay on a good day, a movie you watch with
buddies, beer, wings, and your choice of controlled substances that kicks a
whole ton of ass. It’s a movie of broad characters, big emotions, swooping
drone shots of Los Angeles, an obligatory car chase in the LA River, and of
course, those famous “Baysplosions” that have become his stock in trade. It’s a
movie that was sadly ignored at the box office, but one which I expect to find
a life of its own on streaming.
We start with three main characters whose lives in LA cross
paths one fateful day. On one hand, you have the adoptive brothers Will and Danny
Sharp, the former a veteran who needs money to pay for his wife’s surgery and
the latter a wealthy bank robber who ropes him into a job that can pay all his
bills and then some. On the other, you have Cam Thompson, one of the best EMTs
in the city, and one who’s currently tasked with showing a rookie ambulance
driver the ropes. To keep it brief, Will and Danny’s heist ends in disaster,
with the rest of their crew dead and the two of them forced to hijack the
closest vehicle, which just so happens to be the ambulance that Cam is in – treating
a police officer who they had shot in the course of their getaway. This
actually buys them some protection, as the police won’t dare launch a
full-scale attack on the ambulance without risking the life of one of their
own, but it also puts Will and Danny in the awkward situation of needing Cam to
keep the wounded officer alive lest they lose that protection.
This is a movie filled with all manner of character actors
on the side of both the police and the criminals, but at its center are the
three folks in the ambulance. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jake Gyllenhaal respectively
play Will and Danny as two adoptive brothers with a long history together, a
history that is plainly visible in their interactions even if the film leaves many
of the details of their backstory to the imagination. Will is the guy who tried
to go straight by joining the military only to find that the world ain’t fair,
while Danny is the guy who quickly recognized what Will had to learn the hard
way and relishes his life as one of the most fearsome bank robbers in the
country, complete with the requisite massive collection of sports cars in his
introduction. It’s Bay’s often-seen blend of a love of what America represents in
theory with a deep cynicism towards what it actually is in practice, presenting
a life of crime as a natural way out of poverty for guys born on the wrong side
of the tracks. Mateen makes for a compelling hero as he puts his military skills
to use not only behind a gun, but also when he has to help out Cam in the back
of the ambulance treating the officer, while Gyllenhaal brings the slime that
always makes him so compelling as either an anti-hero or a villain, a guy who
has a hair-trigger temper who you’re just waiting to see finally go over the
edge.
And then you get to Eiza González as Cam. I’ve heard another
critic describe her as the actress you hire when Ana de Armas says no, but I
think that’s being a bit uncharitable to her, as she immediately enters this
film looking like a star and never once gave me any doubt about that for the
rest of the movie. In her introduction, Bay films her saving a young girl
caught in a car crash the way he’d previously filmed Will Smith shooting cartel
goons or Autobots fighting Decepticons. This is a movie that makes paramedics
look like action heroes, and González made me believe it, playing Cam as stoic and
committed to her job but with enough darkness behind her eyes that she didn’t
feel one-note. If I were a casting director for a straightforward action movie,
I’d have put González on my radar immediately after I saw this. (Also, I’m pleasantly
surprised at Bay’s restraint when it came to González’s physical beauty, given
his track record with how he’s framed gorgeous women in his films in the past.)
Bay’s particular sense of style and humor is an acquired
taste at this point, but this is the most focused he’s been in a while, gunning
for excess but always feeling like he’s in control. He manages to use drones to
pull off the kinds of swooping, swinging shots that I’m surprised haven’t been
done by other filmmakers, once again reminding me that, when it comes to
finding new ways to go crazy with a camera, Bay knows how to innovate. The style
he goes for here is a constant feeling that you’re just one or two seconds away
from getting hit by one of the many cars on screen, at times because it’s
crashed and has gone flying in your general direction. Even at Bay’s best, his
style can be exhausting, especially when paired with a very straightforward,
fat-free plot; I’m interested in how the original Danish version handled things.
That said, he makes it all look glamorous and sexy as hell, as though the
entire city of Los Angeles had one big OnlyFans page, and when it all comes
together at the very end, it makes for a great payoff.
The Bottom Line
Ambulance is
one of Michael Bay’s best films in a long while, buoyed by a great cast and his
usual sense of flair with an unusual level of discipline. It may have
unfortunately bombed in theaters, but I expect it to find some life on home
video and streaming.
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