Ambulance makes a strong case for signing a DNR for Michael Bay’s directorial career
If AMBULANCE were a medical treatment, it would be a full-throttle adrenaline shot straight to the heart, jolting you into a state of hyper-activity – just as likely to kill as to cure. Michael Bay’s latest film feels like a never-ending chase scene, a relentless pursuit that leaves no room for subtlety, logic or nuance.
In this frenzied spectacle, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Danny, a criminal mastermind with a penchant for chaos, while Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays his more grounded brother, Will, a war veteran in desperate need of money to pay for his wife’s medical bills. Eiza González climbs aboard as Cam, the paramedic who unwittingly becomes a hostage when the brothers’ bank heist goes sideways, leading to them hijacking the eponymous emergency response vehicle for demolition derby through the amber-filtered streets of Los Angeles.
When it’s not dripping with Bay’s trademark testosterone, the movie is positively slick with modern American hypocrisy. It’s profoundly weird to the rest of the world that a common character motivation in American movies is medical debt. It’s the motivational force that compels Will to join in his brother’s misjudged act of malfeasance. Layering on top of the medical debt is Will’s status as a veteran, underscoring that, much like babies up until the point they’re actually born, America only supports the troops while they’re “over there” and has little time for them once their service is spent.
While the subtext amounts to societal Freudian slip, the plot is simple: two brothers, one paramedic, and one ambulance against the entire LAPD after a heist goes spectacularly wrong and a firefight with the hits-to-shots of an A-Team versus Imperial Stormtroopers title fight breaks out. What follows is a relentless barrage of high-speed chases and explosive action sequences which ensure that the LAPD will spend far more on the operation than the bank could possibly have lost in the robbery.
Bay’s signature style is all over this film, from the frenetic editing to the over-the-top visuals that make every scene feel like an assault on the senses. While the film’s breakneck pace and high-octane action might be its main draws, they are also its biggest weaknesses. The constant barrage of drone shots, while innovative at first, soon becomes tiresome, making it difficult to follow the action. The dialogue, filled with clichés and overblown one-liners, often feels out of place amidst the chaos; not a single character talks like a real person and nearly every line is delivered with the pace and intensity of the legally mandated terms and conditions crammed in at the end of a commercial. Attempts at humour, including a bizarre subplot involving a farting dog, fall flat and only add to the film’s disjointed tone.
The performances are as unhinged and unsubtle as the cinematography. Gyllenhaal’s Danny sees the actor in full swivel-eyed mania, his unpredictable nature adding a layer of convenient caprice to the film, using him to kick things up a gear whenever a quiet moment threatens to break out. Abdul-Mateen II attempts to bring a more subdued, empathetic presence as Will, but he’s often overshadowed or drowned out by whatever mindless machismo Bay is smearing across the screen. González, as the paramedic caught in the middle, does her best to bring some emotional depth to the proceedings, but her character is given little room to breathe amidst the chaos. After all, she is a woman in a Michael Bay film. She’s just lucky she gets to keep her paramedic uniform on.
AMBULANCE suggests that nothing much has changed for Michael Bay as a filmmaker and that he’s quite content in his post-6 UNDERGROUND era playing with his drones, mangling metal on the motorway and blowing shit up with conspicuously pyrotechnic ordinance. But his frenetic and incoherent filmmaking approach feels utterly played out and old-fashioned, making it difficult to fully invest in the characters or their story which in the hands of a more versatile filmmaker might have even had something to say about the events that unfold but as it is, it’s just a loud, brash, and often absurd spectacle that, while entertaining in the moment, leaves little lasting impact. An overdose of action that briefly thrills before leaving you with a queasy comedown and a lingering sense of shame and regret.
