FilmSnobReviews

Title: Ambulance
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Michael Bay
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Eiza González
Runtime: 2 hrs 16 mins

What It Is: Bank robber and overall bad guy Danny Sharp (Gyllenhaal) grew up with Will (Abdul-Mateen II) as his brother. Now they’ve planned a robbery of a very big bank. When the whole heist goes awry they hijack an ambulance in order to get back to a rendevous point they already had planned. But that won’t be easy as they have the whole city of Los Angeles with eyes on them and police with a tail on them.

What We Think: I am by no means a fan of the work of “director” Michael Bay. Not outside of “The Rock” that is. This is almost as okay as that is good. It’s the best we’ve sen from Bay in well over 2 decades. If he could make more films like this and less films like any of the Transformers atrocities that’d be great. Gyllenhaal and. Abdul-Mateen II have decent chemistry and that carries the film. Eiza González is as always a star. She’ll be a bigger one sooner rather than later. Bay leaves some of his more controversial trappings behind in favor of just pointing and shooting…and doing some unique drone photography. This is how Bay wins over myself and frankly the audience in general.

Our Grade: C+, Light on story and muddled in execution for me this is a good Bay film because of the risks he took here. I actually recommend this if you just want to turn your brain off and enjoy a competently directed action film. The sort of thing we normally don’t get in 2022. I’d kinda like to see Bay’s next project just to see if the lessons learned stay or if he reverts back to his previous misogyny.