Review: Michael Bay's 'Ambulance' is loud, long and ludicrous
Got troubles? Then maybe watching police cars and helicopters chase a runaway ambulance for 136 minutes is just the ticket to ride you're looking for at the movies. "Ambulance" is in theaters to fulfill your need for speed, but did it have to be this loud, long and ludicrous?
Director Michael Bay floors the adrenaline pedal as a manic, miscast Jake Gyllenhaal zooms in for his closeup as a smiling bad guy with a psychotic streak who hijacks an ambulance to make his escape after botching a Los Angeles bank robbery. Entertaining? Exhausting is more like it.
At the start of his career, Bay could orchestrate a decent comedy caper such as 1995's "Bad Boys" starring Martin Lawrence and a pre-slap Will Smith. But Bay's weakness for too-muchness kicked in hard with the "Transformers" franchise and hasn't quit since.
Gyllenhaal plays Danny Sharp, a career criminal about to hit a snag. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II ("Candyman") costars as Will, Danny's adoptive Black brother and an Afghan war hero with no job. Danny needs $231,000 for cancer surgery for his wife (Moses Ingram). Danny makes Will an offer he can't refuse: A bank heist gig with a $32-million payday.
In a shameless bid for sympathy, Will also has a baby son to support. No wonder he signs on with Danny and his crew. If he didn't there would be no movie. "Ambulance" takes place in a single day that whooshes by without for a second bothering to be compelling or credible.
Things go wrong from the get-go. When a rookie cop (Jackson Sharp) is shot during the heist, the brothers seize his rescue ambulance, along with Cam (Eiza Gonzalez), the paramedic sent to keep him alive until they arrive at the hospital.
Bay allows the gifted Gonzalez ("Baby Driver") to play a woman of heart and mind instead of a sex object designed for the camera to leer at. But even Gonzales can't survive a scene in which an ex-boyfriend gets on the phone to talk Cam through a DIY surgery on the dying cop in a speeding vehicle.
An LAPD captain (Garret Dillahunt) is also hot on their tail, accompanied by a 200-pound Mastiff named Nitro, played by Bay's real-life pooch, who gives the film's best performance mostly by ignoring his master's orders to go over the top with all the other actors.
Bay acquired an army of drones to shoot the action from every angle. He pulls out all the stops with diminishing returns. A great movie about bank robbers and cops can be made -- check out "Dog Day Afternoon." But without a single character to relate to or care for, this is a movie on life support that needs to call its own ambulance.
