Ambulance

Director Michael Bay is back with his trademark dizzying camerawork and intense action sequences in a remake of a 2005 Danish film. Revolving around a dramatic, extended car chase, Ambulance is a rollercoaster experience that manages to be highly dynamic, yet rather bland at the same time.

Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a war veteran struggling to pay for his wife’s medical treatments. Desperate for help, he reluctantly turns to his wayward brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) who immediately gets him involved in a bank robbery he has planned. In spite of Danny’s expertise in heists, an unexpected incident mid-operation complicates matters. As panic sets in, the brothers end up highjacking an ambulance with first responder Cam Thompson (Eiza González) and an injured cop stuck at the back as hostages. What seems like an easy enough escape turns out to be a high-risk, high-tension venture that presents one dilemma after another. 

Ambulance initially promises a meatier storyline, especially as it starts by introducing complex family dynamics. However, once the action kicks in it takes centre-stage and for the greater part of the film’s runtime (a total of two hours and 15 minutes), Bay pumps the adrenaline relentlessly, paying little interest to dialogues or character development. The initial premise of the story, which is presented hastily in the first few scenes, seems to have been put together as a mere pretext to justify the car chases, shootings and bravado that unfolds later. Some parts are so unashamedly implausible that they elicit laughter from the audience in spite of their theoretically dramatic nature. 

While Bay’s style may appeal to those who associate entertainment with larger-than-life action and constant pressure on the accelerator (literally and figuratively), it is impossible not to feel that the solid cast is wasted on such thinly drawn characters. Essentially, Ambulance is pure action with nothing else to take away from it, and since it has very little to say, it would have perhaps functioned better as a much shorter film. 

Mersa Auda

Ambulance is released nationwide on 25^th March 2022.

Watch the trailer for Ambulance here: