Michael Bay Comes Back for the Action Movie Throne with 'Ambulance'
#172: "Ambulance," "Tokyo Vice," "Speed," "The Last Samurai"
Edition 172:
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week’s newsletter: Michael Bay is back to blowing stuff up in the fun and chaotic Ambulance. Then we need to talk about the new Michael Mann “movie,” and hand out some streaming suggestions. In this week’s “Trailer Watch,” find out where I get MY movie recommendations.
Ambulance
Michael Bay is on the short list of directors that can be identified even by the most casual of movie fans. One could watch any of his hits — Bad Boys, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, Transformers — and recognize his maximalist style instantly. But unlike the slavish reverence to someone like Quentin Tarantino, or stately respect for a Steven Spielberg, fandom for Bay comes with a smirk.
That’s because we all know what we’re getting in a Michael Bay movie: car chases, helicopters, lots of gunfire, flipping cars, heavy use of slow motion, American flags, lens flares, “hero shots” where the camera is always low pointing up at the stars, quick cuts, crazy drone footage, some mention of “the cartel,” strained one-liners, and oh yeah…explosions. Lots and LOTS of explosions.
In recent years, Bay has doubled down on this cliché version of himself. Netflix’s 6 Underground from 2019 was a Michael Bay mad-lib, in the worst possible way, and Ambulance is simply a more successful version of the same. In fact, characters here literally reference two other Bay projects by name (The Rock, Bad Boys)!
Shoot, I feel like my list above might’ve gone on and spoiled the whole thing. But what this movie has that Bay’s last several have not had is a premise capable of supporting Bay’s appetite for insane stunts. A plot “vehicle,” if you will, in the form of an ambulance, used as a getaway vehicle from a bank robbery in downtown Los Angeles.
Ambulance is equal parts Dog Day Afternoon, Heat, and Speed, to name three far superior heist entries. It certainly draws the most inspiration from Speed, borrowing the idea that a whole story can be told aboard a vehicle moving at high speeds on the verge of certain doom.
What saves the movie from total farce is who is aboard that vehicle. Jake Gyllenhaal plays crazy better than any actor alive, and his unhinged yin is balanced by the heroic yang of Yahya Abdul-Mateen, together as bankrobbing…brothers(?), because why not. In the back is an EMT hostage played by Eiza González and a wounded police officer that’s more MacGuffin than actual character.
They’re all flat, 2-D characters (a Bay staple), but played with such conviction that you can’t look away. Gyllenhaal in particular is turned up to 11, carrying the movie with both his one-liners and his intensity.
If I told you any more about what happens you wouldn’t believe me, but suffice it to say that a spleen surgery performed in the middle of a car chase, over FaceTime, using a hair clip as a clamp, is far from the most insane thing that happens.
There’s no claims toward any ethical stance here, other than the most basic sense of heroism and pro-American nationalism. There’s no message, no themes. No point, really. It’s just a crazy, over-the-top, two-hour adrenaline shot.
The experience of consuming it, with cameras strapped to cars and drones flying around everywhere, an almost incessant use of close-up shots, and a hard cut every two or three seconds, will leave you physically exhausted. But in terms of escapism entertainment, few things could be better.
That more-is-more sensory overload is a modern action movie staple, and one could make a reasonable argument that this is Bay’s return to the throne of the genre. When executed well, that rollicking mix of action and comedy is a winning formula with almost every viewer, none of whom will go into Ambulance expecting an Oscar contender.
Where Bay still lags behind other ultra-masculine filmmakers like Michael Mann and Christopher Nolan is the ability to connect action to narrative in any consequential way. On the other hand, Bay doesn’t take himself or his movies too seriously, making them far easier to consume and allowing them to be evaluated with a lighter touch.
At this point you know whether that sort of thing would appeal to you or not. If it does, I’m going to sound like a broken record reminding you that the experience is going to be a million times better if you see this big, loud movie in big, loud movie theater.
This isn’t the BEST iteration of Bay, but it may be the Bay-est iteration of Bay we’ve ever seen.
That is, until his next movie, which is titled — this is not a joke — Robopocalypse.
Something New
Tokyo Vice (HBO Max): I tried making a list the other day of TV shows I wanted to watch and gave up after I wrote down 12. There are too many to keep up with. And because of that, I’ve watched two to three episodes of a bunch of them, and haven’t felt the overwhelming need to finish any of them. That is, until I felt that familiar “can’t wait to watch the next one” urge from this limited series executive produced and pilot-directed by Michael Mann (Heat, The Insider, The Last of the Mohicans).
It’s the story of a young American journalist who’s a fish-out-of-water at a newspaper in Japan, pursuing an investigative story about an underworld war between the Yakuza and Tozawa crime groups. If that journalism premise sounds overly particular to my own interests, I guess that’s kind of the point, because we’re now in an over-saturated market where you can find a beautifully produced show with a couple well-known faces (Ansel Elgort and Ken Watanabe here) for pretty much every subset of interests.
These shows have to be considered in the movie conversation of this year, because obviously I’d go crazy for a new Michael Mann movie, and that’s basically what the pilot episode of this show is. By that logic, we’ve also got a new Adam McKay movie out (“Winning Time”), a new Ben Stiller movie (“Severance”) etc. etc. etc. There aren’t enough hours in the day people!
Something Old
Speed (1994, HBO Max): If you heard my comparisons above and thought, “what the heck is Speed?” well then oh baby, are you in for a treat. In one of the simplest and greatest premises in action movie history, young Keanu Reaves and Sandra Bullock are stuck on a bus strapped with a bomb that will explode if the bus falls under 50 mph.
It’s a B-movie action caper at heart, but elevated to greatness by some clever writing, awesome stunt work and a way overqualified cast that includes Reaves, Bullock, Dennis Hopper, Jeff Daniels and Alan Ruck. It’s one of the true popcorn flick gems of the 1990s.
Something to Stream
The Last Samurai (Netflix): My brother prompted me to revisit this certified 2003 “Dad Movie” — a reminder to the rest of you: send me your own recommendations for me to review in future newsletters! — in which Tom Cruise stars as a Civil War and American West veteran (with undiagnosed PTSD, it should be said) who gets a job training soldiers in a rapidly Westernizing Japan. Cruise gets captured, and eventually trained, by a group of rebel samurai (led in an Oscar-nominated performance by the aforementioned Ken Watanabe).
It wouldn’t be a true Dad Movie without some racial and gender dynamics that have aged…less than perfectly by modern standards, and in fact I’m not sure the White Savior trope has ever been more noticeably reinforced even as the movie attempts to convince you the way of the samurai is superior. The whole thing is pockmarked with historical inaccuracy, oversimplification and Hollywood cheese. Besides, isn’t this just a redressed copy of Kevin Costner in Dances With Wolves?
Okay, yes, but it’s also an extremely watchable and satisfying Hollywood-ized drama. All of those warrior themes — bravery, loyalty, self-sacrifice, etc. — are foregrounded with the help of awesome action sequences and the powerful (if idealized) portrayal of the samurai way of life. The production is stellar (4 Oscar noms), and the storytelling is clear and effective, creating emotional ties to characters even if they are often less than three-dimensional (including Cruise’s protagonist). It’s a war movie with real soul, and I do definitely recommend it.
(Sidenote: complaints about this movie sure make you wonder about Batman Begins, which steals the same plotline, with Watanabe playing an almost identical role in Ra's Al Ghul).
Trailer Watch: Cinefix
It’s another awful week for new movie trailers, and in my effort to expand your cinematic horizons rather than serve you up some promo for the coming summer of kids movies I thought I’d turn you onto another of my YouTube staples.
People always ask me where I get MY movie choices. Well, the channel known as “Cinefix” (recently acquired by IGN) has been my go-to for several years, as it is a non-stop fountain of great suggestions. The thing about their lists is that the 10 movies they pick are inarguable, the 40 or 50 they suggest around the margins are just as good, and the explanations they give out helped me form my understanding of what makes a movie good.
You all know how much I like heist movies, too. The seven of these I’ve seen I’d definitely recommend, and the other three are going on my own watch list!