Ambulance: Rush to See It!

Apologies for the absolutely terrible pun in the title. I try to make sure they all have (somewhat) clever jokes, but they're not all winners. I'd also like to say that I was a few minutes late to watching this movie, so I missed a little of the beginning. I don't really think it made that much of a difference, but I'm just writing about what I saw. With all of that out of the way, let's get started!

Ambulance is directed by Michael Bay and stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Yaha Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza González, Garret Dillahunt, and Keir O'Donnell. To pay for his wife's experimental surgery, Will Sharp (Abdul-Mateen II) turns to his adoptive brother Danny (Gyllenhaal) to get the money. When the plan to steal $32 million goes wrong, the two brothers steal an ambulance with an EMT (González) and a wounded cop (Jackson White) inside. The two brothers must figure out a way to keep the hostages alive, while dealing with the police chasing after them. WIth all of that out of the way, let's dive into the review!

I had a ball with this movie. It was a ton of fun. What I really liked were the characters. The three main stars do a great job. Will is such a conflicted character. The only reason he's in this mess, as mentioned earlier, is to get money for his wife's surgery. He doesn't want to hurt anyone, especially the two hostages. You want him to succeed and get the money, even though he stole it. He's the main reason why Danny doesn't go off on them. Speaking of Danny, Gyllenhaal did an awesome job here. I had such a hard time just pinning this guy down and I mean that as a compliment. Sometimes he'd be doing things that make you go, huh, he's not such a bad guy. At other times, however, he's like a time bomb. You just don't know when he's going to go off. The thing is though, I genuinely felt bad for him. His father was a gangster so this is the only life he's known. Unlike Will, who took a different path in life, this is what he lives for. He gets a certain thrill out of it. What I really liked was that he does care about his brother. It's not an act. Will is the one person Danny listens to. The chemistry they had was awesome. There's a great scene between the two of them where there just singing a song. It felt so genuine. At one point (slight spoiler) they're just beating the crap out of each other. After a while they finally stop and act like nothing ever happened. It was hysterical. I also really liked Cam, the EMT. González did a really good job in this movie. She's not the typical Michael Bay girl, whose main point is to just be hot. She actually has a purpose . Seeing her relationship she has with these two men, particularly Will was interesting. At first, she (understandably) doesn't give a damn about them. She just wants to survive and save the wounded cop. However, as the movie goes on, the dynamic does change a little. I won't give too much away because of spoilers. The supporting cast is great as well. One that really stood out was Garret Dillahunt as Captain Monroe. He's the main cop that's trying to catch these guys. The movie does such a good job of making you want both sides to win. I genuinely cared for these characters. Since this is a Michael Bay, I have to talk about the action. It's awesome and there's a lot of Bayhem. The action sequences are pretty frenetic, but not in a way where it's too much. As is usually the case with Michael Bay movies, there are tons of explosions. However, it's not over the top. This actually feels like the calmest Bay movie he's made (and I say that as a fan. The first three Transformers rule). Since most of this movie takes place in an ambulance (shocker) the filmmakers had to get pretty creative with the action and they succeedeed. Ambulance also does a great job mixing the suspense and action. There's one scene (slight spoilers) where Cam has to do surgery on the cop. The only issue is that ambulance is going like 60 mph and avoiding the police. I was stressed the entire sequence. My body tensed up. This movie isn't too afraid to get graphic, either. At some points it gets pretty brutal. On the flip side of that, this film is pretty funny too. At times I was dying, particularly with Gyllenhaal's lines. He just says his jokes so casually some times. Going back to that surgery scene, it was also pretty funny. Yes it was suspenseful, but Danny has to help Cam with the surgery since there's no other crew there. She's asking him to press a certain button on the defirillator and he says something like, "Which one?? This isn't like playing an Atari!" I was dying. I also really liked the way this movie was shot as well. I heard they used drones a lot and it looked great. There were several times I thought, damn that looks good. The filmmakers made you feel like you were crammed in that ambulance as well. It was very well done.

Even though I really liked this movie, I had a few problems. There were a couple of times when the jokes didn't work, mainly because it was a pretty serious moment. Some of the jokes were the kinds we're used to in a Michael Bay film, too. Early on in the movie there is a shootout, but I kind of had a hard time telling who was who. I also felt that this movie could've been trimmed just a tiny bit. Some parts and plot points were a little too long. With all of that being said, these are pretty minor gripes in an otherwise great movie.

Ambulance is a complete surprise of a movie for me. The characters were compelling, the action was top-notch, the humor worked pretty well, and there were a ton of suspenseful moments. Sometimes not all of the jokes land, some things are pretty hard to tell apart from others, and the movie drags on just a little bit. Other than that I really loved this movie! If I were to rate it, I'd give Ambulance an 8.5-9/10. If you get a chance, please go see this movie in a theater!