Not even the pandemic could slow Michael Bay: unfazed as these transformers who made him one of the big guns of Hollywood, he offers with Ambulance (VO and VF) yet another proof that for him, history is not even a necessary evil (hello, Zack Snyder): he doesn’t care, period. The result is a festival of crumpled sheet metal populated by characters with motivations as consistent as modeling clay: they are given the reply or the action necessary for the scene, without seeking coherence.
This noisy action film where the fiery music (signed Lorne Balfe, Bay’s usual accomplice) holds the spectator by the hand (and ear) in order to dictate to him what state of mind he must be in here and now, is pure and very hard Michael Bay (Armageddon, Pearl Harbor). Fans will not be disappointed. Good for them. Others ? They won’t be there. Good for them. All is well.
Ambulancetherefore, was originally a Danish film of about 90 minutes that was released in 2005. On arrival, today, it was adapted into the American version by screenwriter Chris Fedak (who has mainly worked for television : chuck and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), who repeated in promotional interviews how much he and Michael Bay rewrote until the last second, sometimes the same day a scene was filmed. Let him be reassured: it shows. The feature film, which now lasts more than two hours, may be carried out at a hellish pace, but it drags on and gets lost. And, above all, give everyone more time to say and do anything.
On board the ambulance in question, two brothers that everything opposes.
First, Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, seen for best in The Chicago Seven of Aaron Sorkin and for the worse in The matrix. Resurrections by Lana Wachowski), ex-marine desperate to find the $231,000 needed to treat his wife suffering from cancer. Then his adoptive brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal, who we saw last year in Without callanother adaptation of a Danish film which, this one, was inflated by Antoine Fuqua), a career criminal – who nevertheless seems to live quite a lot in broad daylight – whose specialty is bank robbery.
It will be understood that Will has long since cut the bridges between them. He has rebuilt them in order to save his beloved and is given the role of driver in the robbery of a banking institution, which goes horribly wrong. To escape, the two men steal the title ambulance. In which is a policeman fresh out of school (Jackson White) and seriously injured; and a loud-mouthed paramedic (Eiza González) who once studied medicine (important, she’s going to have to operate in the crazy ambulance: surreal moment). Thereupon arrives the cavalry riding helicopters and cars, led by a tough guy from the special investigations section of the LAPD (Garret Dillahunt).
The stakes and the characters are placed. Michael Bay follows them, going from low-angle dives in the streets of Los Angeles, taking “obligatory” avenues (pursuit in the LA River), multiplying inconsistencies and implausibilities at the same rate as collisions, rollovers and other road pleasures. A dance carried out at high speed and at a high R roar, where everyone bends, like the sheet metal of vehicles, to the needs of the moment, sometimes to the detriment of all logic. Probably an interpretation of what can be seen as “not entirely good nor entirely bad characters”.
The whole thing leads to a somewhat dubious moral. It is not a surprise. What is however, for the “I’m not a fan of Michael Bay” having a certain open-mindedness and being in search of entertainment “no brainer”, it is to what extent, with 45 minutes less on the clock, this far too long film could have served as very drinkable entertainment.