You know we’re languishing in franchise-heavy times when a standalone Michael Bay movie about boys exploding cars feels fresh.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya-Abdul Mateen II star as a pair of adoptive brothers pulling off the heist of their lives in Ambulance—Eiza Gonzalez is the poor EMT whose emergency vehicle is used as their getaway car. Australian cinemas will welcome this city-wide adrenaline ride from February 17.
After starring in Netflix’s thriller adaptation The Guilty earlier this year, this is the second Gyllenhaal project that originated as a Danish-language feature. The 2005 action-heist Ambulancen also revolved around a bank-robbery-turned-ambulance-escape, taking place in almost real time as the desperate brothers race against the law.
It’s hard to say whether this English-language remake will follow that tight plotting, but we do know it’s all set over the course of one day, and that the brothers have some heartfelt meaning behind their mayhem. The massive $32 million heist is kickstarted by Mateen to pay off his wife’s medical bills (how sick can this one woman possibly be??) which makes it all the more suspenseful when things go spectacularly wrong. As movie heists tend to do.
Gyllenhaal looks great wearing a suave turtleneck, and Mateen is just continuing his explosive ascension into every big-budget Hollywood title of the past couple years. ‘Explosive’ being an ideal quality to bring to a new Michael Bay movie—this one looks like it take us back to the director’s LA smash-’em-up action roots, more Bad Boys than Transformers.
And as for Gonzalez, she may be our modern-day queen of car movies, after roles in both Fast & Furious spin-off Hobbs and Shaw and Baby Driver. The casting is a good omen for Ambulance, the kind of lean, mean, highway-shredding cinematic machine for which popcorn was designed. Action-loving audiences can chow down in February of 2022.
