Directed by: Michael Bay
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza González, Garret Dillahunt, Keir O’Donnell
Rated R, 136 minutes
The premise of “Ambulance” is as simple as its title. Bank robber Danny Sharp (Jake Gyllenhaal, “Nightcrawler”) and his brother Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, “Aquaman”) rob $32 million from a bank in broad daylight, but when the heist goes awry, the brothers commandeer a Los Angeles city ambulance, taking a paramedic and a wounded police officer hostage. An army of cops set out in hot pursuit, the ensuing chase full of all the close calls, sneaky getaway tactics, and medical drama you might expect.
But “Ambulance,” for better or worse, is not your average car-chase flick. This is an outrageous spectacle, the kind of movie that feels like it was written and directed by a mound of cocaine. This isn’t a complaint, exactly; I’ve seen far worse films (though also far better). “Ambulance,” however, is a uniquely bewildering cinematic experience, an endlessly escalating and unintentionally funny would-be epic.
Anchoring the film is Jake Gyllenhaal in the most unhinged performance of his career, and one of the most memorable performances by any actor in recent memory. His Danny Sharp is manic and wild-eyed at every turn, equally incensed by the failure of his bank robbery as he is by his ruined sweater (“It’s cashmere!” he wails). While the ambulance paramedic, Cam (Eiza González, “Baby Driver”), deploys her every bit of medical training to keep the injured officer alive, Danny melts down over the news that the flamingo statues he ordered for his daughter’s birthday have been delivered to the wrong address. “They’re supposed to be at the Turks and Caicos property,” he whines without an ounce of irony.
By stark contrast, Will is the quiet, honor-bound brother, unwilling to be the reason for the spilling of innocent blood. Likewise, Cam, established early on as a prickly professional, is bound to the duties of her job. Still, stoic as they are, they can’t help but get sucked into the antics of the story surrounding them. In one scene, Cam and Will perform impromptu surgery on the officer while the ambulance speeds along the highway. If you ever wanted to see how a hair clip might come in handy for treating a ruptured spleen, “Ambulance” is happy to oblige.
This, ultimately, is both the film’s great strength and its undoing. No moment, no matter how sincerely intended, no matter how traumatic to the characters, is presented without a counterweight of outlandish nonsense. That’s why, when the ambulance comes to a sudden stop at a dead end at the top of a hill, two cop cars speed right through the guardrail and go flying into the air. It’s why, when one of Danny’s accomplices gets run over by a truck during the botched robbery, another goon merely chides him, “You shouldn’t have worn sandals, dude.” It’s why Cam pleads with Danny to bring the ambulance to a hospital only for him to blithely respond, “Well, I wish I didn’t have herpes.”
All of which makes “Ambulance” an absolute riot of a movie, a laugh-a-minute romp through LA’s crowded streets and freeways. But like staying awake for 72 hours straight, the unceasing full-throttle intensity quickly becomes exhausting. Michael Bay, whose filmography is so full of chaos that a word was coined to describe his particular style (“Bayhem”), is either unable or unwilling to loosen his aggressive grip on viewers. Even in the film’s quieter moments, ominous music drones on in the background, while Bay’s camera jumps from one awkward angle to the next haphazardly, as though he gave his editors a kilo of Adderall and one night to slap this whole feature together. At over two hours, “Ambulance” is already a long movie, but it feels even longer.
Still, like all train wrecks, “Ambulance” is a fascinating specimen. It’s nice, anyway, to imagine that underneath all the messy spectacle lies something, anything, of substance. Is the film’s depiction of a militarized police force a subtle comment on the state of policing in America? Is Cam’s decidedly unromantic relationship to her job a reflection of shifting attitudes toward work and labor? But let’s call a spade a spade: “Ambulance” is no great epic, no standard bearer of the zeitgeist. It’s your classic escapist fare, stretched to the outer limits of good taste. I loved it and hated it in equal measure.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 5/6/22.