Going into a movie, knowing too much about it, can affect your impressions of the film. (Yes, a review, designed to set up your expectations for a movie, is about to talk about the evils of knowing too much about a movie in advance.) Frankly, I’m glad I knew NOTHING about Ambulance (2022) when I plopped it on Peacock this past week. All I knew was “Hey, this is still playing at the multiplexes and here it is free on my tier of Peacock. Score!”
The flick goes directly into explaining the main characters: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is our defacto protagonist, an ex-serviceman who has broken away from his crime-committing family and is just trying to make enough money to pay for some pricey surgery for his wife. I say defacto protagonist, because he’s the character we are set up to like, where he is supposedly acting with honor when the other characters are just brutal. At the end of the day, though, a lot of the fatal shootings and dangerous driving that occurs in the film is at his hands, so I am not feeling all warm and fuzzy about him.
He throws in to do a bank heist (hesitantly, because, you know, he’s a good guy actually) with his good-for-nothing headcase brother, Jake Gyllenhaal, who must have been paid on a piece rate for chewing scenery. Yes, we know that Jake is white and Yahya is black but they explain this away as an adoption and continue down the checklist of representing every race and creed they can.
Which leads us to Eiza Gonzalez as the nurse in an ambulance our two bank robbing brothers commandeer. She would be the representative for the Latino community that is a good guy, since every other Latino character in the film is some sort of criminal. Gonzalez played the character Salma Hayek brought to life in the TV version of From Dusk to Dawn, and was in last Summer’s Godzilla vs. Kong. I believe she will have a very good career because she can play tough or vulnerable, is jaw droppingly gorgeous, and really connects with the audience. She’s one to watch.
Keir O’Donnell is the FBI agent on the team that is gay. They make sure to show him in couples therapy with his husband before he gets involved in the action. That scene is there strictly so they can show he is gay without saying “Hey, we have a gay guy here.” Frankly, his character is unnecessary. They throw in some nonsense about him being friends with Gyllenhaal’s character in the past, but really everything he did could have been combined with dog-lover (not beastiality, only pet enthusiast) Garret Dillahunt’s police force captain. Dillahunt has recently gotten notice on Fear the Walking Dead, but I remember him most as the very scary Terminator in the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series (which also introduced me to Game of Throne’s Lena Headey.) I highly recommend finding that series and visiting it which turns out to be more fun than any of the Terminator sequels since T2.
Back in the ambulance, the bank robbers lead the police on an all day police chase which leads me to the director: Michael Bay. Remember how I mentioned expectations at the beginning of the review? Had I known it was a movie by Bay, I would have had certain expectations. Hilariously, I recognized these as the film unfolded and was continually asking myself “Is this a Michael Bay movie?” while I was watching. The inclusive/wide array of characters was a first hint. Then there was the rock video like glitz of some of the crazy drone shots they put in, countered by gritty shaky-cam and quick cutting of other scenes (like a history of Bay primer). Of course, a few things blow up, too, but that’s just making a good action movie.
But was it a good action movie? Well, there is an awful lot of insane driving…but oddly, it seemed sort of … dull. It was relentless and just didn’t seem to ever end. Scene after scene. The story was nutso, but honestly, I give that a pass. You have to get the characters in the ambulance and make it credible they are in there for a prolonged period. So with that premise, you will have to do a bunch of stupid things to at least pretend you are building the credibility.
Ultimately, such movies are generally built on how fun the villain is. Gyllenhaal tries, Lord knows, but I’m not sure he can make it…and this is where I blame our defacto protagonist. Had he been a stronger character/actor, I think it would have been better. What they could have done is made Abdul-Mateen’s character a stooge for Gyllenhaal and shifted the protagonist duties solely to Gonzalez. Then, I would have had the pure-at-heart hero that I could actually cheer for. Add to that, she is a paramedic and not some member of law enforcement trained to deal with cuckoo criminals, and you would have had some great conflict. Frankly, Abdul-Mateen looks like he could beat the hell out of Gyllenhaal without much effort, so his hold over his brother seems completely consensual…again leading you to think Mr. Defacto is not that great of a guy.
And that’s why it isn’t that great of a movie. It’s not terrible, but it sure isn’t The Rock either, which he name checks early in the film. This doesn’t match up too well to that one. But does anyone truly expect it to? Or is that the problem with expectations to begin with?