Ambulance is insane even by Michael Bay standards

Based on the early trailers, Ambulance looked like a return to form for director Michael Bay. Freed from the virtually incompressible universe of his Transformers films, Ambulance seemed like the sort of buddy action film Bay made his name on with films like Bad Boys and The Rock. Unfortunately, Ambulance is just as much of a jumbled mess as any of Bay’s Transformers films, minus the excessive robot testicle shots.

The setup for Ambulance is fairly simple. Army veteran Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Candyman) needs a quick way to come up with $231,000 for his wife’s surgery, which his insurance is refusing to cover. In desperate need of cash, he calls up his adopted brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) to ask for a loan.

Danny, a lifelong criminal, and repeat bank robber has another idea —  he needs Will to be a driver for a multi-million dollar bank heist that is set to kick off mere minutes after their meeting (great timing). Will eventually agrees, and like any good heist thriller, things don’t go nearly as planned; the two brothers soon find themselves stealing an ambulance to escape a police shootout, hijacking a medic and a wounded cop in the process.

Ambulance starts off with a fairly ridiculous premise and only gets increasingly far-fetched as things move on. Essentially Speed with the bus swapped for an ambulance, most of the movie is a very prolonged chase scene through L.A. That sounds like perfect popcorn fare, but Michael Bay isn’t ever content to let things play out so simply. This may be the busiest movie Michael Bay has ever directed, which is really saying something. The camera never stops moving, whether to whip furiously around Will and Sharp while they’re speaking or to peer at the characters from the oddest angles possible.

Bay also judiciously uses drone shots here; some of the shots are awe-inspiring in their audacity (whipping up and down the side of skyscrapers for no apparent reason), but more often will likely just leave viewers with a feeling of whiplash.

The one saving grace in Ambulance is Jake Gyllenhaal’s truly unhinged performance. He seems to be the only one who knows the sort of schlocky action movie he’s in, and he turns in an Al Pacino in Scarface-level performance that consists of 90% screamed obscenities. You love to see it.

While the film descends into utter nonsense by the final act, there’s just enough over-the-top action and inexplicable editing choices here to make Ambulance worth a ride.

Ambulance is in theatres now.