Michael Bay is the master of maximalism, a cinematic conductor who orchestrates every shot, explosion, and soundtrack cue into a symphony of sexualized carnage. Though once slandered as the epitome of shallow style over substance, the director now—in a Marvel-dominated era of production-line blockbuster homogeneity—stands out as a uniquely vulgar visionary, his films an orgiastic expression of his gung-ho dudebro machismo. Trading in distilled adrenalized insanity, Ambulance is cast in the same mold, save for the fact that it spurns the CGI overload of his Transformers extravaganzas for visceral practical-effects mayhem. A tale of two bank robbers who attempt to escape capture by hijacking an ambulance, it’s a car-chase thriller fashioned as a manly ode to beauty, chaos and cockiness, and Bay uses it to shower Los Angeles with love in the only way he knows how: by turning it into a war zone.
An adaptation of Laurits Munch-Petersen and Lars Andreas Pedersen’s 2005 Danish original of the same name, Ambulance (April 8) does feature a story populated by distinctive characters. First and foremost, however, it’s an exhibition of unbridled directorial showmanship. Car windshields reflect rows of palm trees, sun glistens off law enforcement badges, and sparks cascade through the air as rescue crews extricate young children from mangled vehicles with the jaws of life. Everything shines in the radiant light of a crystal-clear California day, with Bay coating his action in a luxurious sheen that’s downright erotic. His latest delivers more gorgeous images than can be found in the entire modern superhero canon, and they materialize on the screen in a borderline-assaultive manner, each one lasting a fleet second or two before editor Pietro Scalia cuts away to another sumptuous composition or, just as often, a tableau of road-rage ruin.
Bay’s ADD aesthetics strive to create tension and momentum, and to further that goal, his camera functions as a perpetual motion machine, flipping, spinning, twirling, skidding and sliding about his urban environments. Dizzying drone sequences provide both looping aerial POVs as well as first-person perspectives on careening-through-traffic craziness, most of which climaxes with catastrophic collisions that do nothing to slow the proceedings’ forward progress. Never content to sit still, Bay pans his way through the interiors of banks and homes (and from low angles, the better to ogle his headliners), and zooms and rotates around stretcher-bound bodies within the cramped confines of an ambulance. The experience is akin to being incessantly throttled—albeit with purpose, his every super-tight close-up and expansive panorama designed to convey pulse-pounding, heart-racing emotion.
Ambulance is the work of a director who can do anything and knows it, and whose egotistical brashness is central to his artistry; when characters jokingly reference The Rock and Bad Boys, they come across as humorous humblebraggy nods to the fact that Bay is his own sole frame of reference. There’s still no telling where characters are in relation to each other in this chaotic universe, or even where much of the pandemonium is taking place. Nonetheless, if one is informed—but can’t actually verify—that things are occurring near the Staples Center or LAX, such confusion is an intentional part of the sensory onslaught, and it’s best to simply hang on for dear life and relish those sparse instances when the film briefly pauses to catch its breath.
Bay is all about narcotized energy, and Chris Fedak’s script provides him with a fittingly aerodynamic narrative. Stiffed by cruel insurance companies in his quest to obtain coverage for his sick wife (with whom he has a baby), Marine vet Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) seeks financial assistance from his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal). Five minutes into their reunion, Danny has convinced Will to resume the family business pioneered by their dad: robbing banks. With $32 million at stake, Will can’t refuse, and is swept up in an illicit enterprise that quickly goes awry thanks to a rookie cop named Zach (Jackson White) who wants to ask out a bank teller, and for his cutie-pie effort winds up gunshot and in desperate need of medical attention. Fortunately for everyone involved, ace paramedic Cam Thompson (Eiza González) arrives on the scene, providing Zach with treatment and Will and Danny with a means of slipping through the dragnet formed by LAPD Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt).
All three of these protagonists are defined by their top-notch professionalism, with Cam harried and noble, Will misguided and sympathetic, and Danny manic, arrogant and take-charge—meaning Gyllenhaal is basically a proxy for Bay himself. Ambulance hurls them down highways, local roads and side streets at a breakneck pace, along the way concocting a variety of literal and figurative roadblocks, the most traumatic of which is Zach’s excessive bleeding, which demands emergency surgery performed by Cam—with the aid of Zoomed-in doctors speaking from golf courses—in a car moving at 60 mph. Bay continually ratchets up the tension and bedlam until the film achieves a sort of crushing delirium, its zest for mass destruction as lusty as is its soft spot for juvenile humor (notably, a dog-farting gag), product placement (Dodge Chargers, Challengers and Rams, oh my!) and squishy bathos. There are no half measures here, just sound and fury dialed to eleven.
Amidst this avalanche of guns, quips and fireballs, Gyllenhaal takes great heaping chomps out of the scenery (frequently by barking orders like an unbridled drill sergeant) while Abdul-Mateen II and González fret and fume with sweaty gusto. Ambulance tosses everything into the mix—including, but not limited to, jabs at the military’s abandonment of its own; censure of the health care industry; and a celebration of racial harmony and brotherhood—with infectious glee. It’s moviemaking envisioned as a non-stop bombardment of macho pleasures, completely disinterested in notions of restraint and good taste. Going for the jugular with speed-freak intensity, it makes no apologies for its immoderation; on the contrary, with every one of Gyllenhaal’s cackling outbursts and livid tantrums, one can practically hear Bay laughing with delight from just off-set—as well as demanding more, more, more from the next take. It may run out of gas right before it reaches its conclusion, but as with all Bay ventures, the destination is far less important than the over-the-top ride.
