Ambulance (2022)

Ambulance is Michael Bay in full-throttle, back-to-basics form: a two-hour adrenaline rush that turns Los Angeles into a sprawling obstacle course and an ordinary ambulance into a pressure cooker. It’s not just noise and mayhem, either—the movie’s secret weapon is the uneasy, human tension inside that cramped vehicle, where Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s moral panic collides with Jake Gyllenhaal’s electrifying, unhinged charisma, and Eiza González brings grit and urgency as the one person trying to keep someone alive while everything falls apart. The pacing is merciless, the set pieces are big and legible, and the suspense comes from how long the film can keep tightening the screws without letting you breathe. If you’re allergic to Bay’s maximalist style or can’t stomach intense violence and nonstop shouting, it may be too much—but if you want a lean, mean, relentlessly entertaining action-thriller, this is a great ride.

Ambulance is Michael Bay trying to turn a simple “one bad decision becomes a citywide nightmare” premise into a full-throttle, sweat-soaked rollercoaster, and on that level it delivers relentless momentum and some genuinely tense moments inside the cramped ambulance. The problem is the story is basically an excuse for noise: characters swing between heartfelt speeches and cartoonishly reckless choices, and the script often feels like it’s sprinting past logic to reach the next crash. At over two hours, the chaos can start to feel repetitive rather than escalating, especially if you need coherent motivation and clean pacing to stay invested. If you’re here for aggressive action filmmaking, committed performances (Gyllenhaal in particular), and you can tolerate nonsense in exchange for adrenaline, you’ll have a decent time; if you want a smart crime thriller, this will test your patience.