Ambulance

Summary

“Surgeons are walking her through the procedure to remove the bullet.”

Michael Bay is a polarizing figure in the film world. After blasting onto the scene with the back-to-back blockbuster successes of Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon, he stumbled with Pearl Harbor. Despite the insane box office numbers of his films and a large fan base for his style of directing (even the Criterion Collection released Armageddon and The Rock in deluxe editions at the time,) critics took the opportunity to viscerally attack him with all they had. Disregarding or making fun of Michael Bay pictures felt like a critical duty, one thing that every critic could get behind. This of course, did not stop Michael Bay from continuing to move forward and creating some massive blockbusters. The best of those were The Island and Bad Boys II, the worst of those were the Transformers sequels. I had no interest in the sequels to the Transformers films, but in 2013 Michael Bay made a film that reminded me why I liked his earlier work so much. Pain and Gain is a really good and very well made movie in my opinion. My brother and I both have watched it numerous times and despite the film taking license with a heinous story of criminals to make them likable, it is a lot of fun. This film reminded me that Michael Bay is an incredibly technical and impressive filmmaker. He just happens to have a go-for-broke style that can feel exhausting. When I saw that Universal Pictures was releasing a new Michael Bay film – Ambulance – I was excited to see what he had up his sleeves. While the film doesn’t reach the heights of The Rock or Pain and Gain, it is leaps ahead of Pearl Harbor. I enjoyed watching the film.

In a flashback, two poor kids in Los Angeles – one white and one black- are shown striking up a friendship. Years later, Afghanistan war veteran William J Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) has returned from the Marines. His wife Amy needs a surgery to save her life. He can’t get the proper help he needs from insurance, and he is running out of options. He leaves his wife with their infant son Tate and claims that the insurance is coming through and he is interviewing with a warehouse job. She asks him about a call he received from a blocked number. She asks if it was his brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal.) He says it wasn’t, and then he calls Danny back. Across town, an ambulance arrives on the scene of a bad car crash. A young girl named Lindsey has been impaled on a fence post and the female paramedic, Cam (Eiza Gonzales,) helps to keep the girl’s spirits high as they remove the post and get her to the hospital. Cam Thompson is a great paramedic with bad personal skills. The ambulance driver Scott is a rookie working his first day on the job. Back across town, William meets with Danny. Flashbacks show how they had been raised together not as friends but as brothers. William had been brought into Danny’s family off the streets. Danny’s father was a robber with some violent tendencies. William had left the life and found purpose in the military. His wife needs a surgery that costs $231 thousand, so he has come to Danny for help. Danny offers him an opportunity to make much more than the $231 thousand. Danny plans to hit a Federal Bank for millions and he wants William to be part of the heist… and the heist is beginning now. There are a lot of spinning parts in the heist involving an officer and his partner that are coming back to the bank to follow up on a romantic interest there, a SWAT team that plans to hit the crew performing the robbery, and other complications. After a chain of events in teh robbery, the ambulance ends up being the escape vehicle for William and Danny with Cam the paramedic and an injured cop on board.

While not perfect, this is the best Michael Bay film in a while. This is not a movie about realism. This is a movie about Michael Bay wanting to film gorgeous camera angles and destroy numerous police vehicles in inventive ways for a couple hours. Bay is playing ballet with flying cars instead of dancers. The level of destruction is impressive, especially for having been filmed on a budget of $40 million in the midst of the pandemic. The movie’s plot becomes more and more insane and less realistic as the movie continues. I respect that decision. I am serious when I say that this movie is nuts. For example, why does the the lead hostage negotiator Captain Monroe (Garret Dillahunt) drive around with a massive dog? I only realized later that Nitro is actually Michael Bay’s dog. That’s why he is in the movie. Why does the script quote Michael Bay’s film The Rock in one scene for no reason, and also mention Bad Boys? Does this mean that these characters live in a universe where Michael Bay exists, possibly as some God-like creator in which they are simply pawns? The film makes choices like these without any worries of asking itself “why?” This means there is a ton of nonsense and madness in this movie, but I don’t think that hurts the film. There are some insane moments that rival anything Bay has ever done before. Ambulance features one of the best sequences that Bay has ever filmed in which an impromptu surgery is performed to remove a bullet. This sequence alone is so good that it almost warrants a recommendation on just it alone.

That said, the movie doesn’t totally work for a couple reasons. First and foremost, the film Ambulancen on which Chris Fedak based the script for Ambulance was only 80 minutes long. Ambulance is 56 minutes longer. This is part of Michael Bay’s penchant for excess and the film definitely could have been cut down heavily to its benefit. The other aspect that works both for and against the film is that everything is amped to the extreme in every moment. This is best shown in the performance by Jake Gyllenhaal that is as amped up as Al Pacino in the last couple decades. In the special features the actors discussed how they would have to argue with Michael Bay to do anything in the film without screaming their lines. All of this can become a little wearisome when the picture lasts as long as it does.

Overall – I had a great time watching Ambulance. It is not perfect, but it is a solid Michael Bay film. It is important to note that reviews have vacillated wildly on this one, but I enjoyed it.

Video

Ambulance roars onto the 4K UHD format in its original aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The film was shot with 6K and 8K digital cameras, and the mastering of the film was performed in 4K. The 4K representation on the UHD is (for the time being) as perfect representation of the theatrical experience as possible with given technology. Michael Bay is clearly looking towards the future by filming with 6K and 8K cameras in RAW format. He is smart enough to understand that if there is another leap forward in televisions in the future (which there will be,) shooting in this format will give him a strategic advantage for later. The film looks fantastic on UHD. Cinematographer Robert De Angelis brings out the best of Michael Bay’s frenetic vision with an amazing array of in camera tricks that look remarkable. The HDR10 and Dolby Vision applied to the master bring out precise saturation levels in the colors and fine details. While I am sure the Blu-ray would be an adequate way to experience this film, the UHD presentation is one of the best on the format yet. This is a reference quality transfer.

Audio

Like the video transfer for Ambulance, the Dolby Atmos track is demo quality. The film’s track jumps to life quickly and doesn’t let up for the duration of the film. Clarity is excellent and the movie will test the range of all your speakers and subwoofers. The ambient effects and numerous sound effects in the action sequences are immersive. Like the video transfer, the audio presentation is reference quality.

Supplements:

• Bayhem 
• Pedal to the Metal
• Aerial Assault
• Finding Ambulance
• Chase Capital of the World
• A Tribute to First Responders

Overall Scores:

Video: 5/5

Audio: 5/5

Supplements: 3/5

Overall – 4/5

Ambulance is one of the better films from iconic and divisive action film director Michael Bay. The film can certainly be exhausting and it cares very little for realism. It also delivers some pulse pounding moments of intensity including one of the best sequences that Bay has ever crafted. This film has been very divisive on the forums and has received glowing and debilitating reviews in equal measure. For myself, I was happy to turn my brain off and enjoy the Bayhem. Love him or hate him, there is still only one Michael Bay. The Universal Pictures 4K UHD release looks and sounds incredible. This is demo disc material with reference quality audio and video. The Atmos track is one of the best we will hear this year. The supplements are short but enjoyable. Recommended.