Ambulance
"Ambulance" is an exercise in excessive Bayhem.
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I’ve been a fan and apologist of director Michael Bay from the get-go and he’s been a fairly integral fixture in my filmgoing life ever since.
I’ve seen all of his movies theatrically save for “Bad Boys,” which I remember my Mom renting for me as part of a VHS double bill with “Casper” in the fall of 1995 … one of these movies ruled; the other one starred Christina Ricci, Bill Pullman and Devon Sawa.
I saw “The Rock” theatrically with one of my best buddies and his Dad at the Tippecanoe Mall in Lafayette, Ind. (Something he and I still argue about whether it actually happened or not 26 years later … trust me, it did – his Dad sorta has an Ed Harris vibe about him, which cemented the memory.)
I remember going on a date with a gal to see “Armageddon” opening night (one of maybe three or four times we went out – I shouldn’t have fucked around with those Animal Crackers … kidding … kinda) and turning around the following day to take my younger brother and our across the street neighbor to the movie as a distraction so one of my brother’s besties could set up his surprise birthday party at our folks’ house.
I remember writing a piece about World War II survivor’s memories for The Lafayette Leader in conjunction with the release of “Pearl Harbor.”
I was obsessed with “Bad Boys II” in the summer of 2003. I took a buddy to a pre-release press screening at the Circle Center Mall in Indianapolis, wrote a review of it for the Indiana Daily Student’s Weekend section (where I made reference to rat-on-rat fucking), saw it opening weekend with another buddy at Showplace 12 in Bloomington, Ind. and tried to talk both of these buddies into seeing the movie a third time while we were on vacation in Myrtle Beach, S.C. (“‘Bad Boys II’? Swimming? I’m down for either? Whatever y’all want.”) for which they made fun of me mercilessly.
My friends and I saw “The Island” despite being disgruntled at Bay for dissuading Scarlett Johansson out of doffing her top for the picture.
I saw and was disappointed by “Transformers” while living with my parents in Ames, Iowa.
My then-girlfriend now-wife and I went on a date early in our relationship for dinner at Stir Crazy Fresh Asian Grill and a screening of “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” at the Castleton Square Mall. (We found out Michael Jackson had just died during dinner.)
Seeing Chicago get decimated while soldiers squirrel jumped off the Sears Tower (Get outta here with that Willis Tower bullshit! My paternal grandfather was Project Coordinator on the structure’s construction. It will now and forever be the Sears Tower just like Deer Creek is still Deer Creek in the hearts and minds of Indianapolis’ cool kids.) during “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” in its full IMAX glory is one of my most gleeful moviegoing moments.
I saw “Pain & Gain” with a friend and former co-worker of mine with whom I’ve lost touch. I saw “Transformers: Age of Extinction” with my wife and father-in-law in Portage, Mich. I saw “13 Hours” with a friend while he was living with my wife and I for a short stint. My wife (I’m starting to sound like Borat) and I saw an early IMAX screening of “Transformers: The Last Night” at which we received free, baller Optimus Prime t-shirts. I watched Netflix’s “6 Underground” with that same friend who stayed with us during a mini-Movie Nerd Weekend (an event my buddies and I take part in once or twice a year wherein we eat like shit, drink too much and watch far too many movies).
Bay and his patented brand of Bayhem have painted my life for 27 years now.
This brings us to “Ambulance” (now in theaters). The film could best be described as “Speed” meets “Heat” meets “Grand Theft Auto” meets the OJ Simpson Bronco chase meets your standard issue CBS medical/police procedural on crack. It’s a movie so nice it gets the Universal logo twice. It’s also so inherently a Bay movie that it directly references Bay’s first two pictures and one of the stars of “Pain & Gain.” (The same confusion between “The Rock” and The Rock actually transpired during a conversation I was having with a buddy a coupla days back.)
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars as Will Sharp, a Marine who’s returned home to a sick wife, Amy (Moses Ingram, she was Lady Macduff in Joel Coen’s “The Tragedy of Macbeth”), and an infant son. The VA seems unwilling or unable to help Will in paying for an experimental procedure Amy needs to survive so he turns to his criminal adopted brother Danny (a live-wire Jake Gyllenhaal) for assistance.
Turns out Danny’s looking for an extra man on a bank robbery that should net he and his fellow perpetrators a cool $32 million. Will reluctantly agrees. The job doesn’t go according to plan and Will winds up shooting Officer Zach (Jackson White) twice in defense of Danny. Will and Danny hijack the titular ambulance carrying Officer Zach and manned by EMT Cam Thompson (Eiza González) for a quick escape. In hot pursuit of the brothers are law enforcement officers Captain Monroe (awesome character actor Garret Dillahunt) and FBI Agent Anson Clark (Keir O’Donnell, he was the crazy, gay, painter brother in “Wedding Crashers”).
“Ambulance” kinda fucks and I had a grand ol’ time watching it. There’s a rad chase sequence in the Los Angeles River basin that calls to mind a cavalcade of movies including “Grease,” “To Live & Die in L.A.,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” and “Drive.” The picture is more than capably carried by Gyllenhaal, Abdul-Mateen and González. Its only real drawbacks are its excessive length (it would’ve played a lot better at 2 hours as opposed to 2 hours and 16 minutes), its excessive drone usage (Santa must’ve left one under Mikey’s Christmas tree!) and its excessive cutting (my wife and one of our friends both complained about dizziness). Go figure, Bay’s embracing excess?
“Ambulance,” a remake of the 2005 Danish film “Ambulancen” (this one’s exactly an hour shorter than Bay’s) written by Chris Fedak (creator of TV shows “Chuck” and “Prodigal Son”), has yet to make a dent at the box office and its prospects are looking grim. Please go out to a theater and see it sooner as opposed to later so I can continue making Bayhem memories.