Ambulance review – Michael Bay delivers his best action scenes yet

Michael Mann showed us that heist films can be an art form. Michael Bay reminded us they can also not be. Ambulance, Bay’s latest film, is by no means an exception to his popcorn-friendly aesthetic (or, frankly, lack thereof). But it is 2022’s most straightforwardly entertaining film, in a year where that matters more than it has for some time.

Jake Gyllenhaal is Danny Sharp, an exacting mob leader with 37 bank heists to his name and, at least to himself, morals still intact. Brother Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a straight-and-narrow Afghanistan vet just trying to provide for his baby son and wife Amy (Moses Ingram), whose illness carries the added symptom of extortionate health care payments. You can see where this is going. Will calls up Danny for some financial assistance and is, in the process, conscripted into one of the biggest heists in L.A. history — and an OJ-style highway car chase for the ages.

This all sounds simple enough. The added twist in Ambulance — there’s a clue — is the presence of steely paramedic Cam (Eiza González). Fate and a big slice of bad luck mean she is the passenger in a Sharp-hijacked getaway vehicle of sorts, which is carrying a shot police officer the Sharps have to keep alive. Their foil is an elaborate police operation to catch the thieves and protect one of their own, led by city cop Monroe (Garret Dillahunt, always memorable) and FBI draftee Clark (Keir O’Donnell), who knows the Sharps well.

To say “chaos ensues” would be understating it wildly. Hotly-anticipated “Bayhem” aside, and there’s plenty, Ambulance is a genuinely thrilling B-movie about a heist gone wrong. González is terrific. Her understated performance, which handily contrasts the maximalism of Gyllenhaal and Abdul-Mateen, is a career highlight. That’s not to say Bay’s bros aren’t also highly effective – they're a few notches above serviceable in a film which could so easily be just that.

Describing Ambulance’s audacious action sequences would be giving the game away. Just know that they are bigger and better than Bay has ever attempted. The rewards are luxurious and, a handful of times, very funny. The director’s unrefined use of GoPros and drone footage is a bit of a headache, but after an hour or so your eyes should adjust to the sheer insanity of it all. If that’s why you bought a ticket, you’re in for a treat.

Ambulance is now in UK cinemas.