FILM REVIEW: Michael Bay’s Absurdity Is On Full Display in ‘Ambulance’
Michael Bay, the maestro of machismo flavoured sunlit spectacle, finds a comfortable avenue to let his freak flag fly in his latest roller-coaster action thriller, Ambulance.
Narrative coherence and compelling characters aren’t the priority here. Of course, that scarcely matters; overwrought emotions and thunderous action are the twin stars around which this story revolves.
It is not good, but in between the well-staged set pieces, where dizzying drone shots furiously fly around to document the vehicular pursuits and carnage, I enjoyed the ways in which it was bad. From scene 1, the gross emotional manipulation begins and you may struggle, as I did, with the choice to either resist its heavy-hand or surrender to it. The camera, uncharacteristically subdued, glides over piles and piles of bills while Good Guy Veteran Will (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) pleads with bureaucrats and creditors. He’s a family man and they’re at their financial limit, so he reluctantly connects with his criminal brother Danny to ask for a loan (Jake Gyllenhaal). Danny, a coked-up shark in a skin suit (Gylenhall is quite hilarious in this, by the way) does Will one better and offers 8 million dollars; all Will has to do is join them on a routine bank heist, which will surely not go tits up.
On the other side of town, we’ve got the film’s third lead, Cam Thompson (Eiza Gonzalez). She’s The. Best. Damn. EMT. in Los Angeles. After doing a terrific job of rescuing an impaled little girl, she expresses to her naive partner that she doesn’t want to hear whether the girl made it. In the real world where you and I inhibit, this is a healthy way to compartmentalize so as to avoid being hurled past the city limits of sanity. But Ambulance firmly has its feet planted in Movie World, and so this is evidence of Best-Damn-EMT-in-Town Ms Thompson having some character flaw she must overcome. Will she cross paths with the bank robbers while they’re escaping a shoot-out? As in, will they hijack her ambulance? Will she, in fact, become a more caring person as a result of this improbable adventure?
Yes, yes and yes. Don’t find joy in the plotting because there’s virtually none to be had; instead, giggle at Bay’s reverence for authority figures and cute dogs and equally blazing hatred for everyone else; marvel at his mastery of high octane action.
The movie costs 40 million to make but you could easily mistake it for being triple that amount and in this era where so many blockbusters look devoid of life, that’s not nothing.
It’s big, loud, unforgivably stupid and mean, nihilistic with utterly unconvincing head-fakes at being humanistic. I had a blast.
