Review: 'Ambulance' is gritty and down-to-earth, but just as chaotic as any other Michael Bay movie

What happens when Michael Bay, the guy who makes gazillion-dollar blockbusters like the “Transformers” franchise, only gets a measly $40 million to play with? You get an action movie like “Ambulance,” which isn’t as bloated as Bay’s usual work, but isn’t much more coherent, either.

On an overheated Los Angeles day, Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is on the phone arguing with a health insurance company — his wife, Amy (Moses Ingram), has cancer and needs an experimental procedure, we’re told. He then leaves the house to meet his brother, Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal), who followed in their father’s footsteps into a life of crime. (Since Will is Black and Danny’s white, it’s explained early and often that Will was adopted.)

Will wants to borrow some money from Danny, but Danny has another idea. He wants Will to join the crew that’s about to perform a major bank heist, with a promised haul of $32 million. Will, an ex-Marine who fought in Afghanistan, is the best driver anywhere, Danny says — another example of the script, by Chris Fedak (who created the Michael Sheen series “Prodigal Son”), telling rather than showing.

Of course, Bay is too busy showing off what he and cinematographer Roberto de Angelis (making his feature debut) can do with drone cameras that swoop up and down and all around L.A. City Hall and the old Los Angeles Times offices — the location of the bank Danny and his crew are hitting. (I’m not 100%, but I think it’s the same downtown L.A. street where Michael Mann staged the main gun battle in “Heat” — which makes me wonder why Bay would open himself up to comparison to one of the most kinetic action sequences every filmed.)

The robbery happens, things go haywire, and Danny and Will are in a parking garage with a rookie cop (Jackson White) bleeding out with two bullet wounds. An ambulance makes its way into the garage, with a newbie driver, Scott (Colin Woodell), and a jaded veteran EMT, Cam Thompson (Eiza González), riding shotgun. Danny sees the ambulance as his getaway vehicle, putting Will in the driver’s seat, and taking Cam and the cop as hostages to get past the swarm of law enforcement surrounding the building.

It takes quite a while to get to this point in the story, which is the point of the whole movie: To start what one side character calls “the most expensive car chase” ever. It’s here where Bay seems to be most comfortable, putting cameras on cars as they race, jump and crash — while also capturing Cam’s attempts to keep the cop alive in a vehicle going 60 mph with two squabbling criminals in front.

The three leads — Gyllenhaal, Abdul-Mateen and González — are all better than the material they’re given. The same can be said for Garrett Dillahunt, as the lead LAPD detective who’s been trying to bring Danny’s crew to justice for ages, despite being saddled with too many personality quirks, including a funky old car with a massive drooling dog in the back seat.

The other problem with “Ambulance” is that it’s a movie that appears to be moving quite fast, but with a running time of 136 minutes (nearly an hour longer than the Danish movie it’s remaking), it takes forever to get anywhere. Even without Transformers to play with, Bay apparently can’t help but spin his wheels.

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‘Ambulance’

★★

Opens Friday, April 8, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for intense violence, bloody images and language throughout. Running time: 136 minutes.