Mark Reviews Movies: AMBULANCE

Ambulance, Universal Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | April 7, 2022

"We're a locomotive," says an escaping bank robber. "We don't stop." Once it gets started, neither does director Michael Bay's Ambulance. This is a kinetic thriller that probably is filled with so many holes, inconsistencies, ridiculous ideas, and instances of slapdash filmmaking that the whole thing should be falling apart every other scene or so. "Probably" is the operative word, because that's the thing about an object moving at speed: It's difficult to get a steady, thorough look at it.

Bay uses that fact to his advantage here. This film is always in motion. Bay and cinematographer Roberto De Angelis' camera is always moving—from exposition shots, which do drone-assisted flips and cartwheels around the buildings of downtown Los Angeles, to even basic scenes of back-and-forth dialogue, in which the camera is either subtly moving along a horizontal plane or shaking with the vibration of a vehicle traveling at high speeds on various roads.

There's a similar quality to Chris Fedak's screenplay, which takes its premise from a 2005 Danish movie (not released in the United States) and just keeps adding complication, obstacle, misunderstanding, and threat. One has to admire how an idea so cleverly simple can be expanded to something so overblown and over-the-top.

The real thing to appreciate here, though, is how the combination of Bay's pummeling momentum and Fedak's absurd plotting fit together so well. It's probably all nonsensical, but the film refuses to allow us the time or the energy to consider that possibility for more than a few seconds. It's too busy being constantly busy, and we're too preoccupied with how much is happening on screen and within this plot.

As for that plot, it's essentially an extended—a very, very extended—chase through the assorted streets, sites, and even the main waterway of L.A. There's hardly any setup, and by that, it means we meet Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a Marine veteran and new father whose wife (played by Moses Ingram) has been diagnosed with cancer. An experimental surgery might save her life, but the insurance company won't cover the procedure.

Will goes to his brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), a career criminal following in his father's footsteps, for some help. Upon arriving at the brother's shady place of business, Danny has a shady business deal to offer Will.

Danny and a team are about to commit a bank robbery. The haul will be $32 million, so Will's cut would be much more than the amount he wanted from Danny. After some pushback, Will agrees.

Anyway, the short of it is that Will and Danny are the sole survivors of the robbery, and with half of the cash, they hijack an ambulance to evade the cops. The long of it is that the ambulance also has onboard the unflappable paramedic Cam Thompson (Eiza González) and a wounded police officer (played by Jackson White), who just happens to be there because Will shot him when the cop tried to fight and kill Danny.

Forget all of the coincidences and contrivances of this initial scenario. The setup is simply an excuse to put these four characters in a confined, mobile space and to set an entire city's worth—and then some—of cops after the ambulance.

The main pursuers are Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt), an LAPD cop who's determined to catch the crooks (unless his beloved dog just happens to in the backseat of one of the pursuing squad cars, which is an amusing little character detail), and FBI Agent Anson Clark (Keir O'Donnell), who went to post-grad school with Danny (He was studying police tactics on behalf of his dad) and believes he can talk down his old classmate. There's little reason to care about these particular characters, except for the nifty tech they use to track the ambulance and how Fedak doesn't make the federal interloper the usual, dumb, and clichéd barrier to the local cops' mission.

No, the main reason to care about any of this is the continual movement, the constant addition of new problems for the crooks and the paramedic, and how the filmmakers balance a certain melodramatic severity with some clearly self-aware silliness (A couple of cops discuss a previous Bay film before all hell breaks loose, and one would hope that no director these days has a car crash into a fruit cart without it being a bit of a knowing wink). Most of the action features the ambulance outrunning and outmaneuvering various police vehicles (cars and armored trucks and helicopters).

There's a certain gamesmanship to the strategy and tactics on both sides. Sure, Bay is more concerned with giving us as much vehicular carnage and destruction from multiple angles (meaning that some moments feel as if they're happening in a vacuum outside the actual flow of the action), but the assorted, isolated scenarios here do possess some degree of logic. If that logic collapses occasionally, it barely matters. The film thoroughly and effectively distracts us with rapid-fire spectacle or an absolutely bonkers scene in which Cam has to perform surgery—in the back of the speeding ambulance, with help from multiple doctors on video calls.

A secondary reason to care is that the main characters—the thieving brothers and the paramedic—and performances are sturdy. Gyllenhaal is assured in his unpredictability as the robber who doesn't want to be like his father but finds himself moving that way, and Abdul-Mateen is sympathetic in a morally ambiguous role. The standout, though, is González as the cool-as-ice Cam, exuding confidence, intelligence, and determination with apparent ease.

Ambulance works. That's not because it's an airtight thriller with all of the gears turning in precise motion. It's simply because, through a sort of locomotive coercion, the film refuses to let us think otherwise.

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