Review of Ambulance (2022) by Markhreviews — 26 Apr 2022

When you see Michael Bay (“Transformer” series, “Pearl Harbor,” “Armageddon”) listed as director in the opening credits, you know what you’re going to get: fast and energetic camera movement, fast editing and an epic sense of visual scale. It’s an approach to filmmaking that can cause sensory overload. They call it “Bayhem” for a reason. Visually, “Ambulance” lives up to this expectation.

What’s typically lacking from a Michael Bay film is intricate plotting – okay, average plotting. What’s missing here is even the crumbs of a compelling narrative. In the course of a bank robbery, two of the robbers hijack an ambulance to make their escape. They drive around Los Angeles pretty indiscriminately for the 2:16 running time of this steaming mess. Bayhem ensues. Eventually the ambulance stops. Roll closing credits.

Danny Sharp (Jake Gyllenhaal - “Brokeback Mountain,” “Nightcrawler”) and Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II - “Matrix Resurrections,” “Aquaman”) are brothers. They are racially different, but brothers. We’re told repeatedly that they are a “real family.” Because Danny is a remorseless psychopath, their intricate family dynamics are slightly unreliable. Will needs money for his wife’s “experimental surgery. Except insurance doesn’t cover experimental surgery because, they tell me, it’s experimental.” Danny offers to help by bringing Will into his latest heist. Who could have predicted that, on the day of the planned robbery, they’re one man short? And now that Will is part of this clueless band of merry men, what could possibly go wrong?

EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza Gonzalez – “Baby Driver,” “I Care a Lot”) partially redeems this enterprise. She’s compelling and the camera loves her. She’s an effective partial antidote to the testosterone-infused craziness going on around her. On the other hand, she’s also required to perform abdominal surgery in a moving ambulance while being coached by two surgeons on a golf course. After that, the action becomes less plausible.

The mystery is why Jake Gyllenhaal aligned himself with this project. Apparently, he wanted to demonstrate his public devotion to the Nicholas Cage School of Manic Acting. That is to say, Gyllenhaal’s character yells at lot. At important moments, as a context clue, he yells a lot louder.

“Ambulance” is best summarized by a line embedded in an endless stream of wisecracks among the pursuing cops: “… it’s a very expensive car chase right now.” “Ambulance” is based on the 2005 Danish film “Ambulancen,” which had a streamlined running time of 1:19. After watching this American version, I’d have happily watched the film in Danish with no subtitles to regain the hour lost forever from my life.