Ambulance Review: Michael Bay Directs An Adrenaline-Pumping, Crazy And Over The Top Remake

Director: Michael Bay

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza Gonzalez

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3/5 (three star) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]

Ambulance Review: Michael Bay goes back behind the camera to direct a thrilling new action starring Jake Gyllenhaal. So here we are ready to tell you about our personal impressions with the Ambulance review. For lovers of the leading actor of Donnie Darko it will be first of all important to know that it is a Michael Bay film in all respects. So don’t expect a sought-after arthouse film style The Nightcrawler and Enemy. Here we are on a purely commercial production, which focuses on special effects and fun, with a little nod to the classics of the 90s genre. Extreme action and a race against time are the two main ingredients of this Ambulance, a crime action set today in the metropolis of Los Angeles.

Ambulance Review: The Story

Will has to cover large medical bills to allow his wife to be cured of cancer. Lacking the cash, he turns to his foster brother and lifelong friend Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), infamous for his ability to rob banks and get away with it. Unfortunately, Danny is also going through an economically unhappy period for which he cannot lend the money to his close friend. But Danny needs a war veteran like Will to land the biggest bank robbery ever. The loot consists of a whopping 32 million dollars, a portion of which would go to Will who could pay for his wife’s care in this way.

Unlike Danny, however, Will is an honest man and accepts the job but with several reservations. Due to a series of unfavorable events, the bank hit unexpectedly takes a bad turn. Danny and will find themselves escaping with part of the money, aboard an ambulance. Darting through the streets of Los Angeles, the two desperately try to get rid of their tracks; but the special forces do not let go. Complicating the situation is the presence of two hostages aboard the ambulance: a paramedic named Cam Thompson (Eiza Gonzalez) and a policeman seriously injured during the robbery. In a real manhunt, different destinies intertwine and are indissolubly linked. Nobody is safe.

Will Sharpe (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a former Marine who served the US military with honor and respect for his country. Unfortunately, things are not going well for his family now: his wife Amy is seriously ill and cancer treatment to save her life is too expensive. It was useless to resort to his decorated pasts to ask for state aid: Will’s military service was forgotten too quickly and is not enough to grab certain privileges, and poor Amy risks not making it, leaving a tiny, orphaned daughter of his own mother. Will has an adoptive brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), to whom he has been linked since childhood, when Danny’s father decided to welcome the young man into his home. Despite his noble soul and incorruptible spirit, Will turns to Danny for financial help. And his brother, an expert and professional robber, offers him to join him in a very ambitious coup inside one of the big banks in Los Angeles. And Will’s waste is useless: soon, reminding him how much he needs money to save his wife’s life, Danny convinces him to take part in the operation, setting up a team that will help them empty the facility’s vault.

While the confrontation between the two brothers unfolds, an ambulance travels through the streets of Los Angeles saving numerous lives. Inside is Cam (Eiza Gonzalez), LA’s most skilled and famous paramedic. Timely, courageous, expert in first aid, holder of several rescue records, Cam is a very cold young woman, as generous on her job missions as she is contemptuous of others in private. Will, Danny and Cam: the fate of these three characters is destined to cross when, during the coup by the two brothers, everything goes wrong, and the raid on the bank turns into a violent shooting with the police. In an attempt to escape, Danny and Will take refuge right inside the ambulance where Cam works, taking her hostage and speeding in the medical vehicle through the streets of Los Angeles, hunted by police cars and FBI helicopters in an attempt to escape arrest and carry out their plan.

Ambulance Review And Analysis

In short, Ambulance mixes in itself various shades of action. He only disguises himself as an extremely dynamic heist movie, becomes a thriller at times almost psychological for most of its duration and sometimes almost contaminates his soul devoted to action with the characters of a road movie – because, in fact, the heart pulsating narrative takes place on four wheels, fleeing towards freedom.

And not all the elements of this ambitious mixture are perfectly amalgamated: in just two hours Michael Bay, supported by the screenplay by Chris Fedak, Laurits Munch-Petersen and Lars Andreas Pedersen, creates a work in full compliance with the canons of his cinema, with a rich substratum of narrative content that does not always hit the target. From the very first minutes, for example, one perceives a deeply intimate and introspective side of the film, with sequences that alternate flashes of past scenes with the suffering of the present experienced by the two protagonists. Even the work done on the characters, in particular on the three main ones, tries to go in this direction, balancing the psychological aspect with the action component.

Unfortunately, in terms of writing, the effectiveness of the characters and their respective motivations come out a little bruised: while finding laudable the attempt to give depth to figures that almost take on the aura of anti-heroes, on balance the protagonists are a little ‘too sketchy, and their rendering on screen is partly saved almost exclusively by the actor’s performances. Above all, Gyllenhaal and Abdul-Mateen II stand out, who in addition to demonstrating excellent chemistry also show off an excellent individual repertoire: the character of Will is more serious and profound, while totally over the top the Danny of a Gyllenhaal to be appreciated.

Here, the problem of Ambulance is typical of various productions signed by Bay: the need to always take oneself too seriously rather than indulge in the unbridled fun of a cinema that in its action parts becomes pleasant, adrenaline and partly experimental. In any case, Michael Bay proves to be a master of action films, although in Ambulance we found less exaggeration than in the past, almost as if the Bay of 6 Underground was somehow slowed down. In any case, the violence remains very present, at moments almost of a gore of considerable importance, but above all the will of Bay remains to lead us with arrogance into the heart of the action.: thanks, this time, to camera movements that follow the frenetic pace of vehicles, to panoramic sequences exploiting (perhaps much more than in the past) the use of very fast drones.

Perhaps it is also thanks to an extremely warm patina in the colors and the most thriller soul of the film, which brings Ambulance and its protagonists closer to being almost a buddy movie on the contrary, centered on criminals rather than on policemen. A stratagem that works only in form, however, and much less in substance, in the face of an operation that will be able to satisfy the diehard fans of the Hollywood Destroyer par excellence. Everyone else will probably struggle to come to terms with this cinema once again.

Ambulance Review The Last Words

Ambulance is pure Michael Bay, nothing more and nothing less: an action thriller, with heist movie nuances, adrenaline-pumping and funny in the action sequences and a little too bland in its intimate dimension. Once again, in short, Bay confirms himself as a witty connoisseur of the most exaggerated and spectacular cinema, but he sins in taking himself too seriously on the front of the characterization of the characters and their dramaturgical weight. In any case, the spectacular and entertaining approach of the film, supported above all by an excellent Jake Gyllenhaal, still represents a wedding invitation for the admirers of the king of Hollywood explosions.