Ambulance

“We don't stop” almost becomes a mantra for Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his adopted brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), who have hijacked an ...

Over the decades, Bay has continuously increased the scale of his action spectacles, and in doing so, has lost what made him such an entertaining action director in his earlier films. Meanwhile, Gyllenhaal’s Danny is more of an uncertainty, a criminal who clearly loves his brother, but his shady past shows that he will also do anything to survive. But Ambulance is also a film that Bay and Fedak know people will either embrace for what it is, or completely disregard, and Ambulance rightfully decides to play to the audience that is ready to go along for this ride. From the moment Ambulance gets going, it doesn’t stop, and for the first time in a long time, Bay makes this adventure compelling from beginning to end. Written by Chris Fedak (Chuck, Prodigal Son) and based on the 2005 Danish film of the same name, Ambulance embraces the inherent ludicrous nature of a Michael Bay film. The last two decades of Bay's work have been packed with five different Transformers films, and while we occasionally got glimpses of the absurd fun that started Bay’s career with something like 2013’s Pain & Gain, Bay has mostly become known for his excess and exhaustion.

The action auteur's latest opus stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as bank robbers who commandeer an unlikely getaway vehicle.

This kind of mishap is a staple of shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and “9-1-1,” and “Ambulance” can be seen as a sustained critique of television’s domesticated presentation of disaster. It all ends up pretty much where you expect it will, but the actors do a good job of seething and emoting under pressure, and Gyllenhaal does a volatile, charming sociopath thing that isn’t as annoying as it might be. Ergo “Ambulance,” which takes place in a single hectic day in Los Angeles and is defiantly the kind of movie they supposedly don’t make anymore. And “Ambulance,” which includes verbal shout-outs to “Bad Boys” and “The Rock,” is something of a return to form for this auteur of vehicular mayhem and muscular bombast. Some of the salient points are made through dialogue (the script is by Chris Fedak), in a series of offhand jokes about the current state of pop-cultural literacy. You’re not required to believe any of it, but somehow the word that comes to mind when I reflect on the 136 minutes I spent pinned to my seat watching this thing is “persuasive.”

Of all the many things that go fast in Michael Bay's pedal-to-the-metal retro action thriller “Ambulance” — the speeding EMS van, the army of police cars ...

Next to films like “Armageddon” and the “Transformers” movies, “Ambulance" was made for a surprisingly modest $40 million. “Ambulance,” a Universal Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for intense violence, bloody images and language throughout. For Bay, and perhaps only Bay, “Ambulance” is a relatively small and contained film. It has a gripping, gonzo glory — Bay knows just how far-fetched this sort of movie should be — and it's paced by an abiding affection (and a lot of drone shots) for Los Angeles. Crisscrossed with the city's freeways and art deco architectures, this is Bay's “La La Land," just with explosions instead of song-and-dance routines. In the sirens of “Ambulance,” you can probably already hear the echoes of other movies. With a steely and highly professional EMT (Eiza González) in the back tending to his wounds, the brothers flee through Los Angeles in a daylong chase.

Yes, it's true (and we still can't believe we wrote that headline above): Ambulance, the new action thriller from none other than director Michael Bay, ...

But it’s Gonzalez who is its heart, with Cam pushing all her own frailties and issues aside to focus on the matter in front of her. While the action is relentless and a bit numbing as one would expect, Ambulance works best when Bay jerks the camera around the inside of the runaway ambulance. Luckily, Danny and Will escape in an ambulance with an injured cop named Zach (Jackson White) and a no-nonsense EMT named Cam (Gonzalez) as hostages. This makes his everyman soldier a genuine gravitational center for the piece. Kong)—this is a two-hour mad dash that won’t have you regretting the decision to sit down and watch. Except Danny isn’t just wealthy; he runs a criminal operation that he inherited from the brothers’ late father, a career that Will deliberately stepped away from.

Michael Bay leans on Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mahteen II while trying to suture drone footage into something meaningful.

Abdul-Mahteen II seems hopelessly overwhelmed by a nonstop string of plot developments, each of which make less sense than the previous one, while Gonzalez seems rightfully grateful to be playing a role in a Michael Bay movie where an EMT’s uniform doesn’t somehow involve a bikini. But his increasingly frantic assembly of the dozens (if not hundreds) of angles culled from drones and more traditional hero shots— all of which he seems to love equally—produces a relentless barrage of imagery that overpowers the viewer instead of pulling them forward. Like Will’s military past, Danny and almost all of the other characters on screen are defined by a one-sentence description meant to justify and explain the many complexities and contradictions of their behavior, from Danny’s uneven (biologically inherited) sanity to Cam’s cold-blooded medical skills under pressure. Based on the 2005 Danish film of the same name, Prodigal Son and Chuck executive producer Chris Fedak’s script loosely aims to capture the heist and its aftermath in real time, a choice that best serves Will’s impulsiveness to get involved with Danny’s clearly harebrained scheme and, seemingly less intentionally, the cops’ repeated incompetence in containing and apprehending the runaway ambulance. But when a lovestruck police officer (Jackson White) insinuates himself into the building to pursue a bank teller, Danny’s best laid plans descend into chaos, with an LAPD Special Investigations team swarming the site and Will accidentally shooting one of the cops. Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mahteen II and Eiza Gonzalez follow in the estimable tradition of Nicolas Cage, John Turturro, Frances McDormand and other “serious” actors wrestling with the twin impulses of trying to do real work while collecting a blockbuster-sized paycheck under the director’s watch.

Everyone knows Michael Bay, and everyone knows what to expect from any Michael Bay movie. That's a given nowadays. Ambulance is Bay's 15th movie so far, ...

On the other hand, Bay's Ambulance is a perfect example of all-out, big budget action movie insanity in a way that satisfies that gnawing desire for "I can't believe they did that" filmmaking. Maybe it's because a heaping dose of Michael Bay escapism for two hours is actually a healthy break from all the heavy emotions and intensity of everything else going on in the real world. It's the ultimate escapism in that everything happening is absurd and presented in a way where we're supposed to be entertained and nothing more. It's billed as Bay's "love letter" to Los Angeles, with the letters "L" and "A" turning different colors in the title sequence, for no other explainable reason than to boldly say "this movie is set in Los Angeles and Los Angeles gave us every resource to make it!!" So much of it is confounding nonsense much like most of Bay's action scenes, especially the scenes early on where Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Will shows up at some fancy warehouse in Santa Monica to meet his brother (uh sure, why not?) Danny, as played by Jake Gyllenhaal. They argue about random things before Will explains he needs a boat load of money to help his wife's medical problems, so, well, Danny convinces him to help him rob a bank. The only thing not big in this movie is the drones they use to fly around random places in Los Angeles. Everything else about Ambulance is as excessive and extreme as anything can get; of course there's explosions & gunfights galore.

Michael Bay's 'Ambulance' might be the film that finally gets the action director the credit that he deserves.

Both of those themes feel equally applicable to Bay’s filmography: It takes a master tactician able to lead an army of second-units and stunt drivers and camera ops, which by any measure he is, even to his detractors, but he’s also someone who has been perpetually pigeonholed by a dismissive cinephile intelligentsia that is only starting to come around to the fact that his work is of immense value, even on solely aesthetic grounds. Even without the constant cuts, with shots coming and going within a snap of one’s fingers, his camera is always moving, keeping the viewer off-center and at ill-ease, making them feel the stress that is consuming everyone involved in the chase on-screen: it’s sweaty and tense, full of adrenaline and paranoia. He’s always stimulating something, trying his best to keep you awake and engaged while making you feel like you got your money’s worth, and that includes revulsion and straddling the boundaries of good taste. It’s staffed by Cam (Eiza Gonzalez), an EMT who tries her hardest not to give a damn about the emotional aspects of her job because it’ll get in the way of her being able to save lives speedily. Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the mastermind behind the heist, a cool and calculating professional criminal with charisma to spare, who believes that through cunning and intelligence, he can accomplish what his dad did without resorting to small-arms fire. Despite the best efforts of film circles, Michael Bay still makes films, and, subsequently, he is forced to remind the world at least once a decade that he often makes good ones.

In the sirens of Michael Bay's “Ambulance,” you can probably hear the echoes of other movies. “Speed” and “Die Hard” are just a few lanes over from Bay's ...

Next to films like “Armageddon” and the “Transformers” movies, “Ambulance” was made for a surprisingly modest $40 million. For Bay, and perhaps only Bay, “Ambulance” is a relatively small and contained film. In the sirens of “Ambulance,” you can probably already hear the echoes of other movies. “Speed” and “Die Hard” are just a few lanes over from Bay’s film, which opens in theaters Friday, and so are some of the director’s own movies. “Speed” and “Die Hard” are just a few lanes over from Bay’s film, and so are some of the director’s own movies. In the sirens of Michael Bay’s “Ambulance,” you can probably hear the echoes of other movies.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is the heart of Michael Bay's new film, the calm negotiator in contrast to Jake Gyllenhaal's wide-eyed loose canon.

To that end, I’m still thinking about the character and what I would do if I had a second crack at it. Most of the time I don’t do that. But the Matrix continues to grow and change as technology matures, and as a society we’ve changed our relationship to the virtual world. But I definitely worked a lot of days on Aquaman 2. But now I get to explore what drives him not just as a villain, but as a human. That’s saying a lot, because I just came from working with Lana Wachowski on The Matrix Resurrections. I’m really just making my rounds with eccentric directors in Hollywood. I think one more millimeter, and he would be there in the film. That’s just the type of actor I am. Abdul-Mateen is the heart of the movie, the calm negotiator in contrast to Gyllenhaal’s unpredictable, trigger-happy criminal mastermind. Yeah, admittedly, in the first Aquaman, there wasn’t an opportunity to show how multifaceted the character was. Michael Bay reportedly didn’t know who Yahya Abdul-Mateen II was before he cast him in his latest high-octane film Ambulance, but the actor is about to become a household name. Things go predictably awry and the two steal an ambulance and take hostage an injured policeman (Jackson White) and a paramedic (Eiza González). The movie plays a bit like Speed, except the men at the wheel are bank robbers, and one of the hostages is performing emergency surgery on the other in an ambulance flying down streets at 60 miles per hour.

10 reconditioned ambulances filled with medical supplies are now in use on the streets of Ukraine after LAS volunteers delivered them to Ukraine.

I’m so glad that we did it and that we stayed to help. We did the best we could. “I’ve spent many hours thinking about the challenges you must be facing and want to say you are doing an amazing job. “Everyone in the ambulance service has been deeply affected by what’s going on and this felt like the right thing to do. Eva Bartovska, Senior Sector Clinical Lead, was inspired to plan the project after seeing her aunt in the Czech Republic had taken in Ukrainian refugees. Seeing on the news what’s happened with children crossing the border on their own, I just wanted to help.

"Ambulance" is another wild and entertaining Michael Bay movie. Following the success of other blockbusters like "Armageddon" and the "Transformer" movies, ...

In 2016, Bay made headlines when he cast Freya, " the world's loneliest dog," in "Transformers: The Last Knight," which premiered in 2017. Michael Bay is obviously a dog lover. The Michael Bay movie is no doubt richer thanks to the cameo; it's a personal touch (and big dogs in little cars is, admittedly, amusing). The anecdote also serves as a reminder of Bay's process: he likes sunsets, practical effects, and sight gags. Interestingly, Michael Bay's comments about his canine-crisis on the set of "Ambulance" is actually not the first time the director has made news thanks to a dog being in one of his films. In the words of /Film's own Chris Evangelista, " Ambulance" is "one hell of a ride." Michael Bay loves his dogs — so much so that he puts them in his movies, whenever he can.

Director Michael Bay isn't satisfied with making a movie that merely raises your pulse. He wants to inject pure cinema into your veins – and drive it all ...

The bonkers drone footage is a visual counterpoint to the steady Cam. So much of “Ambulance” works like a charm, but acting-wise, it could use a deeper bench. But there’s a catch: Their passengers include Cam and a rookie policeman (Jackson White) who was shot during the robbery. We first meet the seasoned EMT Cam (Eiza Gonzalez) on her way to a gruesome accident in which a child has been impaled on a fence. One of the robbers is Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), a military hero whose health insurance won’t pay for the surgery his wife desperately needs. But it’s such efficient stimulation, it rises to a higher level of art.

Ambulance” pines for a visceral, breezily violent style of film that doesn't slow down to ask too many questions.

Next to films like “Armageddon” and the “Transformers” movies, “Ambulance” was made for a surprisingly modest $40 million. “Ambulance,” a Universal Pictures release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for intense violence, bloody images and language throughout. For Bay, and perhaps only Bay, “Ambulance” is a relatively small and contained film. It has a gripping, gonzo glory — Bay knows just how far-fetched this sort of movie should be — and it’s paced by an abiding affection (and a lot of drone shots) for Los Angeles. Crisscrossed with the city’s freeways and art deco architectures, this is Bay’s “La La Land,” just with explosions instead of song-and-dance routines. In the sirens of “Ambulance,” you can probably already hear the echoes of other movies. The robbery fails to go according to its hurried and haphazard plan, and, like in Michael Mann’s “Heat,” a bank-job-gone-wrong spills out onto downtown Los Angeles streets.

Ambulance star, Eiza Gonzalez, says that the upcoming Michael Bay action thriller was the esteemed director's most high-octane shoot to date.

While that may have been the case, Gonzalez did express that the "emotionally" charged elements in such a "contained" story helped add the adrenaline rush to make it stand out as "a Michael Bay movie." With films like the Transformers series, The Rock, Armageddon, and Pearl Harbor, Michael Bay established himself as a director who can more than hold his own when it comes to creating blockbuster action flicks. Early Ambulance reviews are generally positive, making this the best-received Bay movie in years. And then when I wrapped, I was like, "What did I just do?" Over the course of his career, Bay has become synonymous with action filmmaking, delivering a variety of high-octane titles. Based on the 2005 Danish film of the same name, the story of Ambulance follows two adoptive siblings turned bank robbers who hijack an ambulance after their heist has gone wrong, taking two first responders hostage in the process.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II star in Michael Bay's latest action-a-rama extravaganza.

In no particular order, that stuff includes: helicopters, snipers, surgery performed by Zoom, front-seat fisticuffs (while one of the participants is driving), spray paint, a blood transfusion, a through-the-windshield fistfight, driving the wrong way on the freeway (you probably could have predicted that one), a dog who likes Mongolian barbecue, and a lot of semi-automatic gunfire. When a tech-whiz cop arrives on the scene (a wittily deadpan Olivia Stambouliah), the captain gets to switch roles and play straight man, doing so to good effect. In contrast, Abdul-Mateen (”Candyman,” “The Matrix Revolutions”) doubles down on kilteredness, making Will stalwart and upright, or at least as upright as a guy who’s a bank robber can be. González has the tricky task of facing a series of truly overwhelming situations, remaining indomitable throughout, and not seeming like she’s wandered in from a Marvel movie. The getaway entangles Danny and Will with Cam (Eiza González). Or entangles her with them. That extends to the fact that “Ambulance,” a remake of a 2005 Danish film, is 56 minutes longer than the original. He also remembers the big shoot-out in Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995). As it happens, the bank that Danny wants to rob is in downtown Los Angeles, so the getaway options are pretty extensive: boulevards, freeways, even the Los Angeles River. Do you remember “Speed” (1994) and O.J. Simpson’s low-speed freeway episode? Another is that Danny is rich — having robbed three dozen banks will do that for a guy — and Will is not. Its title to the contrary, “Ambulance” isn’t a medical movie. What you think of “Ambulance” will likely depend on whether you consider that distinction more in the way of high praise or cause for alarm. For some viewers, the result will be 2 hours and 16 minutes of movie heaven.

In Michael Bay's latest film, Jake Gyllenhaal plays a quick-witted, charming psychopath.

But Will comes to Danny for financial help and immediately gets embroiled in a bank heist that goes bad and leads to long (a key word here) and repetitive (another key word) combat with L.A.’s finest SWAT phalanxes. You may cancel your subscription at anytime by calling Customer Service. Michael Bay, the director, working from a screenplay by Chris Fedak, has spent decades keeping audiences in a state of anxious arousal (“Transformers,” “Pearl Harbor,” “The Rock”). In this action adventure, the apotheosis of his career thus far, cheerful idiocy occasionally rises to the level of delectable lunacy. Will, an ex-Marine, is a good man struggling to provide for his family. For the most part, though, it’s entertainment as punishing paradox, a high-speed slog. The main thing you need to know about “Ambulance,” showing only in theaters, is that it’s insane.

The disaster artist's latest is here to remind you of the head-spinning delights of watching a genuine cinematic madman at work.

Reportedly made for just $40-million, the film looks like it cost approximately $100-million more – plus many dead stuntmen bodies and a forever-destroyed L.A. (a city that Bay interestingly renders as a wasteland of rust, trash and homeless encampments). The actor has been defying expectations for a long while now, and in Bay’s bloody hands he gives a gloriously unhinged performance – all raging charm and venomous sociopathy. A remake of the 2005 Danish film of the same name (which Bay has proudly never seen), Ambulance is, perversely enough, what its director considers a “small” project. So begins a city-wide chase that ropes in typical Bay-movie functionaries (the eccentric tactical expert played by Garret Dillahunt, the level-headed FBI agent played by Keir O’Donnell) plus a few head-slapping surprises, including the best use of Christopher Cross’s Sailing ever committed to film. A slick remix of Speed and Heat (with more than a few direct name-checks of Bay’s own filmography), Ambulance follows two brothers, the do-gooder ex-Marine Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and the erratic thief Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal). In need of cash for his wife’s experimental cancer surgery, Will approaches Danny requesting a loan. This early abandoning of genre conventions – usually in these type of set-ups there is a buildup to the robbery, with the characters going over the plan, the stakes, the contingencies – is the first whip-quick cue that Bay’s film isn’t going to take a millisecond to rest.

Jeff Ewing is a film critic, filmmaker, and screenwriter in LA. Follow. Apr 7, 2022, 08:27pm EDT ...

The weakest parts of the film are its beginning and end. That said, the crux of the film is a consistently fun, outlandish, larger than life spectacle with a siren on top. It’s a high octane, mile-a-minute tour through LA city streets that, in the core of the film, is entertaining. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Will is the film’s emotional grounding, and he gives a strong performance that lands the difficulty of making a relatable character do ethically questionable things. They have to find a way out when all of the cops in Los Angeles turn their eyes upon the thieves. The troubling thing is that Danny, like their father, is a career criminal about to score a big heist.