Ambulance (2022)

Score: 2.5 / 5

It's pretty much what you'd expect from the trailer, or by knowing that Michael Bay is directing again. Thankfully, this one doesn't call for the outlandish over-reliance on special visual effects that made him famous with the Transformers franchise, but beyond that it's very much a Bay blockbuster effort. His trademarks here manifest in exhilarating chase sequences, massive explosions and gunfights, and bewildering editing and dizzying kinetic cinematography. And despite some heavy-hitting star talent, it's also a pretty unremarkable film that might have been better as an extended episode for a serial drama like 9-1-1. 

Struggling veteran Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II of Candyman, The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Matrix Resurrections) is in a bind to finance his sick wife's life-saving surgery. He asks his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) for help, and gets roped into a bank heist. Danny knows what he's doing -- his latent sociopathy peeks through occasionally in a masterful performance that could easily have been single-note -- but even the best-laid plans will go awry when players are blinded by the love of money. After sudden violence and graphic bloodshed, the brothers are forced to hijack an ambulance as a getaway vehicle, keeping as dubious hostages an EMT nurse Cam Thompson (Eiza Gonzalez) and a slowly dying police officer. Yeah, the nurse is Latina and the brothers are black and white and the camera lingers on the cop's badge more than once; it's a typically performative bit of diversity and hot topic-baiting that doesn't end up meaning much.

But this movie isn't a riveting psychological thriller or fraught social commentary piece. It's an action movie, and Bay knows what he's doing in that arena. Ambulance is indeed a roller coaster to watch, wild and kinetic in its palpable adrenaline rush. The opening sequence is arguably its best, balancing bits of multiple characters and their stories and bouncing between them to show their interplay and inevitable collision. Once the actual heist devolves into bloody chaos, the film's stakes are pretty much ratcheted up to their apex; things shift a bit as the hostages consider fighting back and the cops pursuing the brothers attempt to negotiate, but it's all held at a plateau that feels more like a test of endurance than one of maintaining interest.

The film reaches a particularly contrived but effective climax when, during the final chase, Cam is performing open surgery to save the cop while his blood gushes like a fountain and Will serves as a human blood bag and Danny is driving the wrong way on an overpass being chased by helicopters. It's completely insane, and everything goes wrong, and it's all just a breathless flood of images and deafening sounds and dizzying camerawork. I said it felt like a roller coaster, and it's telling that a repeated moment in this film is what appears to be a drone shot, zooming up the side of an LA skyscraper and then zooming back down until the audience's collective stomach is in its throat. There's nothing profound or meaningful or moving about Ambulance, but it's still a fun time in the cinemas before we head into summer blockbuster season.