For his fifteenth feature film, Michael Bay is back with a supercharged thriller that breathes the 1990s: Ambulance. Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Eiza Gonzalez, the film tells the story of how two adoptive brothers decide to steal $32 million. Obviously, things go wrong, and the duo find themselves in an endless chase in an ambulance, with a policeman between life and death and a young nurse inside.
Ambulance: pure Michael Bay
With Ambulance, director Michael Bay has pushed all the cursors of his cinema to its paroxysm. Big stupid and regressive delirium, the feature film takes up all the clichés of its author: epileptic direction, over-cutéed editing, action galore and an epic breath of all moments. Here Michael Bay has totally let go, let his camera speak, which seems to be constantly freewheeling. 
A new work in which he particularly flared with the montage. Particularly lively, this montage chains the shots at a crazy speed, always too high, trademark Bay. Ambulance is finally served by a particularly dripping cutting, where some action sequences are sometimes almost incomprehensible. Inevitably, this incredible number of shots, which are clearly recovered on different rushes, lets pass the traditional false connections of Michael Bay. Handcuffs that detach themselves, cars that change places, a fire extinguisher foam that only touches one of the two characters, until the presence of a technician on the screen who holds a dog in the back of a police car (be vigilant it goes fast), everything is there. And as usual, Michael Bay royally stamps it. 
And by this nonchalance of detail, Ambulance fits perfectly into the style and tone of its author. The film is a joyful draft, ultra generous, which offers some superb iconic shots (the air of nothing Michael Bay knows how to compose an image), and especially a deliberately asphyxiating chase of an impressive duration.
The synthesis of Michael Bay's cinema
In addition to being an intuitive and bloated cocaine trip, Ambulance takes up themes dear to its author. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II translates the traditional heroic figure of the American soldier abandoned by the system, already at the center of 13 Hours; while Jake Gyllenhaal is the portrait of a lost America , in search of an illusory American dream, which prefers to go through violence (and flawed plans) to make money. An idea already strongly addressed in No Pain, No Gain obviously. 
As in the days of Rock or Armageddon, Ambulance returns to the popcorn cinema of the 1990s. An action cinema based on simple concepts, and on a decomposition of the codes of action of the 1980s. But Ambulance is also a synthesis of everything Michael Bay has done in the past. An iconic duo (Bad Boys, Rock, etc…), eccentric characters (Jake Gyllenhaal literally farts a Nicolas Cage-style cable as the film progresses), and a treatment of the action that obviously recalls his last visual trips like 6 Underground. And in all its subtlety, the filmmaker wants to make it known by quoting himself. 
Ambulance is therefore a form of quintessence of Bay's cinema. A scenario that fits on a postage stamp, sometimes very stupid characters (when their plan holds up for so long), a desire to make fun of everything in the image of a totally absurd robbery, and above all an apathy for action at all ends of the field that is felt from the first moments. Michael Bay doesn't bother with any exposure and jumps straight into a joyful two-hour chaos, with very few breaths. His offbeat humor, although more discreet than usual is also part of the game. Some big punchlines, but especially a hilarious relationship between Olivia Stambouliah and Garret Dillahunt. In short, Michael Bay lets go, and it's a great pleasure. Popcorn attraction par excellence, Ambulance is explosively generous. A controlled entertainment product, which offers some nice visual flights, especially when the filmmaker decides to use his drones and passes through mouse holes to film the action from angles always unprecedented. Ambulance is therefore the representation of Michael Bay's cinema pushed to excess. A messy, generous entertainment, under permanent adrenaline, but also bloated, and yet undeniably attractive. https://youtu.be/Hsawq4dFcRY
