A pair of bank robbers attempt a makeshift getaway in an emergency vehicle in Ambulance, a real jolt of adrenaline from director Michael Bay. More grounded and somewhat restrained than the director’s usual fare, this one ranks behind The Rock and 13 Hours as one of Bay’s best films; only a pedestrian screenplay keeps it from truly soaring.
Ambulance stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Will Sharp, an Iraq war vet struggling to make ends meet and raise the funds for his wife’s life-saving cancer treatment. Will’s no-goodnik brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) has just the thing: a poorly-planned $32-million heist at a downtown L.A. bank that could be the answer to his prayers.
Meanwhile, rookie cop Zach (Jackson White) has been building up the courage to ask out a bank teller, while veteran partner Mark (Cedric Sanders) forces the issue and sends the young Romeo inside. The bank is closed for inventory, says Danny, playing manager in the middle of the heist, but Zach talks his way in anyway.
And then there’s no-nonsense EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza González), who proves her all-business ‘tude by claiming she doesn’t care if the 12-year-old she rescued from a mangled car wreck survives or not. She happens to be eating enchiladas down the street when she gets a call reporting the bank robbery – and an injured policeman inside who needs immediate assistance.
This setup all occurs during the first twenty minutes or so of Ambulance, and once Will and Danny hijack the titular vehicle with Cam and a critically-injured Zach in tow, the next two hours play out as an extended getaway as local cops and federal agents pursue the ambulance on a destructive chase across Los Angeles.
It’s spectacular stuff that doesn’t just throw carnage at the screen, but carefully weaves story threads through all the mayhem. In Ambulance’s most pulse-pounding scenes, combat vet Will assists Cam on performing life-saving surgery in the back of the ambulance, guided by an ex-boyfriend through video chat, while Danny weaves in-between police cars and tries to keep speeds low enough for the delicate operation.
As the kind of over-the-top Hollywood action movie that Bay has become known for over the past three decades, Ambulance is first-rate stuff. In terms of high-octane thrills, it even gives Speed a good ride for its money. But anyone in search of a more substantive story to go along with all the carnage will be left disappointed.
The plotting of Ambulance would slide it into the classic mold of L.A. heist films like Heat or To Live and Die in L.A., but Bay’s film lacks the hard edge that would truly ground this film into an acceptable reality.
The script is reluctant to declare Will or Danny anti-heroes, and tries to have its cake and eat it, too, by asking us to accept these armed robbers as actual heroes. While the Sharp brothers and their cohorts are shooting up cops throughout the film, and causing all manner of vehicular carnage that certainly results in numerous deaths, Ambulance also wants to sell us on the idea that these are really good guys at heart, and will ultimately do the right thing when the time comes.
This leads to climactic scenes of ambivalent character motivation that don’t really pay off in real-world terms, because we all know there’s only one way this movie can end. In the L.A. bank robbery neo-noir genre, the recent Den of Thieves and Wrath of Man packed more substantive punches, even if Ambulance has them beat in the action department.
Paired with a giant Mastiff as his sidekick, Garret Dillahunt steals his scenes in Ambulance as the police captain throwing a seemingly-infinite number of cruisers after the robbers. His character is the kind of real-deal hero that the movie desperately wants us to root for, and yet the script seems content to use him purely as a means to drive the narrative forward.
Still, those heading into a Michael Bay movie get their money’s worth in Ambulance, which outdoes the director’s Transformers films with its practical stunt work, slam-bang car crashes, and fiery real-world explosions. Ambulance is the kind action movie they just don’t make any more, and never takes its foot off the gas pedal once it gets going.
Ambulance is now playing in Prague cinemas ahead of an April release date in the United States.
