I’m not sure why I skipped Ambulance in theaters, but I’m gonna guess it was either a COVID spike or it was too close to Easter and I was skipping the movies as I would be seeing elderly relatives for that weekend. So, yeah, COVID. But Michael Bay is a director whose work, for some reason, always attracts top notch casts despite the reputation of his work. Apparently, many actors find working with him a lot of fun given he asks them to run around and be a little crazy in ways other directors just won’t. Besides, this one doesn’t have large, visually incomprehensible robots hitting each other.
Oh, and for some reason, I signed up for Peacock to see it.
War vet Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) needs a lot of money for his family fast, and he has no way to get it. His only hope is to reach out to his adopted brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), a criminal who specializes in bank robberies. Yes, Danny has a job that will get Will more than the money he needs. All Will has to do is join Danny’s crew for a one-and-done. Will has a conscience, and while he loves his brother, he isn’t too pleased with the rest of the crew. Things go a bit wrong when rookie cop Zach (Jackson White) shows up to ask a teller he likes out, and the LAPD under Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt) has set a trap for the crew anyway. Things go badly for the crew, and Danny and Will are the only ones left. Their only escape option is an ambulance. They keep one paramedic, the generally dispassionate Cam Thompson (Eiza Gonzalez), as a hostage, but there’s one other twist: Officer Zach was shot during the escape, and he’s possibly bleeding out in the back of the ambulance.
That makes things a lot more complicated. Simply shooting, let alone killing, a cop will bring the hammer down on the brothers much harder. Danny, though a bit of a hothead at times, prides himself on his professionalism. Will just doesn’t want anyone else getting hurt or especially killed. Cam is doing what she can to keep Zach alive. The cops are trying to bring them in. It’s LA, so there’s traffic and highways everywhere. And Danny can call in other criminals for help with the right incentive. Can the brothers get out of this one?
Credit where it’s due: Michael Bay is good at this sort of thing. It’s a smaller movie compared to his other work, and while he is not above literally referencing his earlier work, the plot to this movies, the tension remains high, and despite Bay’s directorial style, it’s never difficult to follow what’s going on unlike a lot of other folks who try to do things his way. Factor in as well good performances from the cast, especially the always-reliable Abdul-Mateen, and what comes out is just a fun movie. Yes, it has the Bay trademarks of slow motion, shots of the American flag, and a hero worship of soldiers if not tough guy authority figures in general.
It helps that despite different personalities and paths, the movie makes it clear that the one thing Will and Danny feel they can really rely on is each other. Cam has a character arc that works, and while Officer Zach spends most of the movie unconscious on a gurney, Captain Monroe is a pretty colorful character, largely because Dillahunt seems to be having fun with the character. Maybe Bay should stick to smaller stuff and leave the giant robots out and stick to stuff more like this. He does better when he isn’t basically making an action movie for kids of all ages.
Grade: B+
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