Ambulance
UNIVERSALOne of Hollywood’s favourite cities to film in still remains Los Angeles. The sprawling metropolis has been home to many of cinemas most revered car films and chase sequences, from the likes of Drive, Collateral, The Fast and The Furious, and To Live and Die in LA. With Ambulance, Michael Bay looks to put his stamp on the LA car movie with his usual maximal styling.
The film follows veteran Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), who’s desperate for money to cover his wife’s experimental surgery when he turns to his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), who overs Will a means of getting the money he needs by helping him do a bank heist. The job goes awry, forcing Will and Danny to run and wounding a LAPD officer (Jackson White) in the process. The two decide to steal a ambulance, who’s EMT (Eiza Gonzalez) is treating the officer they just shot.
This is a Michael Bay film, and the action scenes are reminders why; when not embracing his worst tendencies, he still remains one of the best directors in the genre. Few film makers could make vehicles chasing each other through a empty lot look and feel exhilarating, but thanks to Bay’s style of shooting, ADHD editing, and use of slomo, the scenes are able to convey the action and tension without getting lost in its own chaos as is often the case with one of his films. Comparisons to films like Collateral and Mad Max: Fury Road are pretty apt, as Ambulance revels in the carnage of the action as much as it revels in the many LA locations it runs through.
Filmed by Roberto De Angelis – who filmed the Agnes Varda documentary Faces Places – he makes a name for himself with the work he accomplishes in the film, mainly from the use of drones photography. Mostly used in productions for shots typically reserved for a helicopter or even dolly shots, Bay and De Angelis have managed to make them a part of the film in ways that haven’t really been seen in a Hollywood production. Incorporating them into not just outdoor or action scenes but also within exterior scenes, as is the case numerous times during the heist scene. Even in generic city scape shots, the drone work feels more alive and unique than the use of the tech in previous films – even in some of his own works – often times swooping through and over buildings before flying towards the vehicles and action.
Though no one is coming to the film for its performances, it helps that the cast as a whole is strong and knows the kind of film they’re making. The supporting cast – made of of the likes of Garret Delahunt, Keir O’Donnell, Olivia Stambouliah, and Jose Pablo Cantillo – all deliver serviceable, mostly one note performances in their roles as the underwritten police and the criminals helping Danny and Will escape. One thing to be noted is how the film’s script doesn’t treat these side characters like caricatures or stereotypes, with the film’s sole gay character having a prominent role in the story and the female characters being given more agency than being sex objects and exposition espousers. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza Gonzalez both deliver strong performances, with the former finding nuance in the emotional conflict his character goes through during the film, showing why he’s one of the most exciting genre actors today, while the latter brings command and depth to a character who suffers from being the most underwritten of leads. The real standout of the film, though, is Jake Gyllenhaal and his cocaine energy performance. Whether on screen with Yahya and Eiza or yelling into a phone, Gyllenhaal plays everything as over the top as the material calls for and makes it work without becoming too cartoonish in his actions or line delivery.
With a strong cast, particularly an unhinged Jake Gyllenhaal and some game changing drone work, Michael Bay’s Ambulance finds the director still able to bring his singular “bayhem” to the screen without being the usual mind numbingly chaotic.
