Los Angeles becomes Michael Bay’s personal sandbox once more, in his latest bombastic action hit Ambulance. This glorious car crash of a movie is now playing in Australian cinemas—make sure you don’t get caught up in the Bayhem and speed over to the multiplex too quick.
Ambulance stars an especially unhinged and shouty Jake Gyllenhaal, and chiselled Candyman star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as adoptive brothers. Yahya’s Purple Heart-awarded vet needs serious money to pay for his wife’s cancer treatments, and the only way he’ll get it is by reluctantly joining in on brother Jake’s latest get-rich-quick scheme.
The scheme is a classic boys-and-their-toys bank job but it goes horribly awry, forcing the boys to hitch a ride on an ambulance as their getaway vehicle. What follows is hours of helicopter dodging, reverse highway chases, and frenetic medical emergencies: there’s a dying cop in the backseat, and a brave EMT (Eiza González) doing all she can to keep everyone alive.
We bloody love Ambulance for doing just what it says on the tin: namely, delivering high-energy action and chase sequences as only Bay knows how. Samuel Harris celebrated the director’s penchant for adrenaline-fuelled sequences in this top five list, where Ambulance would certainly earn the sixth spot.
Rory Doherty’s review of the film expressed bemusement that this is seemingly the greatest amount of depth and character development that Bay is capable of. But those lengthy action scenes apparently deliver: “it does capture, for better or worse, a sense of fun. It feels like Heat on cocaine, but instead of just Al Pacino’s character, everybody in front of and behind the camera is on the stuff.”
For coked-up, Los Angeles destruction, Ambulance is the only place to go. Bay has even kindly highlighted the initials “L.A.” in the title font, to make sure we never forget its City of Angels setting.
