You will need one after seeing this movie.
Michael Bay has not exactly had the best track record when it comes to his directorial efforts. While his films have proven to be popular with audiences in the past, he is not exactly a darling when it comes to his critics. At his best, he makes something entertaining like the first Transformers film or an honest true story effort like 13 Hours. At his worst, practically anything else that he has directed ranks among the most self-indulgent films cinema has to offer. Now that he has stepped away from the Transformers series for a while, one would wonder what he has next up his sleeve. The answer comes in the form of Ambulance, a remake of the 2005 Danish film of the same name.
In this film, Will, a war veteran, is desperate to pay his wife’s outstanding medical bills. Against his better judgement, he teams up with his criminal adoptive brother, Danny, to rob a Los Angeles bank. When the heist goes wrong, the two brothers hijack an ambulance occupied an EMT, Cam, trying to save a cop shot amidst the havoc. Held against her will, Cam continues trying to revive the officer while the two brothers drive the ambulance through the streets of L.A. avoiding police. That is more or less the premise, and could make for an intense, high octane thriller, but one must remember that Michael Bay is the director here.
The biggest detriment to Ambulance is that the cinematography is headache-inducing. Michael Bay seems to have no vision, because nothing in his films are in service of anything. For example, this film features drone shots that suddenly dip and slide down the side of a building. The effect is dizzying enough, but what makes it worse is that it makes no sense in the context of the scene. Tonally, it does not match what is happening, and it fails to communicate any sense of tension.
Sadly, the cinematography is not much better on the ground, either. Many of the action scenes contain handheld shots that are shaky to the point of being incomprehensible. Of course, many action films apply this filmmaking technique to add a sense of realism, and usually it is effective. Audiences should be able to perceive what is happening, though. In this film, it is confusing to figure out anything that happens and to whom it is happening. A significant character will be shot, but it cannot be determined whether or not they died. This one of the cases where a film keeps audience in suspense not due to investment in the characters, but due to incoherent cinematography.
At best, the film’s cinematography contains dutch angles and cliched sunset shots one would expect from a Michael Bay movie. These shots, however, feel imbalanced and unfocused when they need to be. Even the introductory scene that introduces the characters feels more like a Nike commercial than a film. All of this is complete with scrambled editing an ugly oversaturated color grade.. One could edit in scenes from Transformers into Ambulance, and see if people can tell the scenes apart.
Also similar to Transformers, the performances do little to heighten the film’s quality. Jake Gyllenhaal, who is an impressive actor, feels miscast and wasted in his role as Danny. His lines are inane, and delivered with about as much subtlety as an ambulance with its sirens going off. Once in a while, Gyllenhaal delivers a funny line, but his performance can’t help but feel like a waste. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is fine as Will, but is not given enough an opportunity to show his chops. Eiza González is serviceable as Cam, but feels like a Vogue model cast in an everyday role. It seems unrealistic, yet again, all Michael Bay films have this trait. Aside from a questionable elevator passenger, at least Bay is employing less ethnic stereotypes. He did, however, feel the need to show a fruit stand being destroyed not once, not twice, but three times.
Some may find Ambulance to be an entertaining film due to its bombastic action, but it can’t help but underline Michael Bay’s flaws as a film director. He seems more interested in the commercial aspects of a film, such as product placement and referencing his own films. As a result, he cares little about relatable performances, intelligible cinematography, or stories with any sort of substance. It is not fun enough to be Transformers, and not poignant enough to be 13 Hours. What one is left with is a film that tries to be serious, but feels the need to be inane as well.
