A Review of “Ambulance (2022)”

 

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. An unfortunate flaw of Michael Bay is just the very dumb story and writing in his movies which is a slight shame. Therefore, I didn’t have high expectations for his latest movie but I was intrigued because legendary actor Jake Gyllenhaal was going to be in it. The premise is “Needing money to cover his wife’s medical bills, a decorated veteran teams up with his adoptive brother to steal $32 million from a Los Angeles bank. However, when their getaway goes spectacularly wrong, the desperate thieves hijack an ambulance that’s carrying a severely wounded cop and an EMT worker. Caught in a high-speed chase, the two siblings must figure out a way to outrun the law while keeping their hostages alive”. So is this one thrilling Bay chase or one that needed stopping?

Firstly, the main actors are all phenomenal in their roles by giving 110% in every scene, even if the dialogue is dumb. I love the chemistry between Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Jake Gyllenhaal who play the brothers, Will and Danny respectively. They bounce off each other very well and they portray the love and conflict of the brothers excellently. A surprising standout is Eiza González who plays the EMT and is held hostage. She managed to feel like a believable EMT in what is a ridiculous and over the top movie which is honestly impressive. Additionally, what is surprising in this movie is the amount of heart put into the story. The brothers have a caring relationship but one is truly kind and the other kind of sociopathic. This leads to conflicts between the two but in the end there is still this brotherly love between them and I got invested in these two characters. The EMT, Cam, might be the core of this film as she is the one who is brought into this madness. She truly wants to help people and this results in her conflict that I won’t spoil but it ends up being very interesting.

The action scenes are also a blast to watch but that is to be expected from a Bay movie. What sets this apart is how suspenseful the movie is. Most of the movie is just spent on this long chase sequence and it is very intense stuff. Bay loves explosions but he doesn’t use them much in this film which I think works better. It makes it more impactful when an explosion does occur and I respect him for not overdoing it like he always used to do. One new quirk he does though is the amount of drone shots. It is like he discovered a new toy to play with. Luckily, it ain’t done poorly and I did like how he utilized it. Legendary music composer, Lorne Balfe, is the one who does the music score and it is amazing. This film wouldn’t work as well if it weren’t for his score as it makes this long 2-hour chase more exciting and thrilling.

However, a quirk from Bay movies is still here and that is the silly dialogue. It is still here and some of it does feel very silly and even pointless. There are also some very nonsensical things that are just questionable. For example, the robbers do not cover their faces and use their real names. Cops just driving into things and off cliffs like absolute morons. The movie also feels a bit too long than it needed to be which causes some slow pacing at times. It is 136 minutes which is way too long for a movie with barely a plot to it. If they cut down on some pointless dialogue and shots that last for a bit too long, you could easily reduce this film by 20 minutes.

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie. I expected a dumb action movie but I got an intense 2-hour chase sequence. It is way more enjoyable than his Transformers movies and his last one, 6 Underground (2019), which was hot garbage. Michael Bay movies are there to entertain and this certainly succeeds in that.