There’s something about the cover art that reminds me of the TV series Miami Vice. Maybe it’s the cool chrome color palette, or the framing of the shot, or maybe there’s no connection at all. In fact, when I first saw the trailer, I actually thought this was from director Michael Mann, who directed the film version of Miami Vice as well as another of my favorite heist dramas, Heat.

They set off the LA in “Ambulance” to let you know that’s where the film is set. But this is actually a remake of the 2005 Danish film Ambulancen, written and directed by Laurits Munch-Petersen, which has a very similar plot, though tweaked for modern technology and the greatly increased budget a Bay film demands.

If you’ve seen Heat—and if you haven’t, please do so immediately!—then Ambulance is a bit like Breedan (Dennis Haysbert) being pulled in for that last job, but instead of getting killed almost immediately, he gets stuck with totally crazy Waingro (Kevin Gage) as they shoot from the hip (quite literally sometimes) and try to escape and get away with the big score. 

For a film with a 136-minute run time, Bay doesn’t spend much time on backstory, and once the story starts moving, it moves fast and doesn’t stop. Instead, he has characters share bits of information along the way, letting us stitch the important bits together before jumping straight into the action. We learn Will Sharp (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is back from the war in the Middle East and his wife needs an experimental surgery that is going to cost a bundle. He asks his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal) for a loan, but Danny is about to execute a major bank heist and could use Will on his crew. Danny’s father also has a history of violent heists mixed with crazy. 

When the heist goes wrong, a cop is shot. An ambulance is dispatched to work on the officer, and Will and Danny see this as their getaway. They steal the ambulance with EMT Cam (Eiza Gonzalez)—who has a reputation for being able to keep any patient alive long enough to make it to the hospital—and bleeding-out Officer Zach (Jackson White) on board. 

With $16 million in stolen loot in the ambulance, what seems like the entirety of the LAPD vehicle and air division converge on the vehicle in a chase through the streets of LA as Danny tries to think his way out of things.

Danny knows if the ambulance is stopped—or if the cop on board dies—they’re done, so the movie has a bit of a Speed–like quality, where things are constantly on the move and there is this back-and-forth move/countermove between the police trying to stop the moving vehicle and Danny and Will figuring their way out. 

If you start asking questions like, “Why didn’t they just shoot the engine block with that Barrett 50-cal?” or “Why didn’t they shoot out the tires or lay down a tack strip?” then you’re thinking too much. Instead, sit back and enjoy the carefully orchestrated vehicle mayhem and shootout main course that Bay has set for you. As one character astutely observes, “It’s a very expensive car chase right now.” 

As much action as Bay packs in, Ambulance starts to feel long and a bit repetitive. Even though they try to throw in some unique uses of tech, some cool helicopter flying, some fancy driving, and lots of crazy camera angles, zooms, pans, and drone camera shots, after a while you just become a bit shellshocked and numb to what is essentially just a long chase sequence. Also, that they shoehorned in a completely pointless scene to show that FBI Agent Clark (Keir O’Donnell) is gay just feels like an egregious case of “box checking.”

Shot on Red at 6K and 8K, the home transfer is taken from a 4K digital intermediate, and it clearly looks it. Images are super clean, tack-sharp, and highly detailed. Similar to the cover art, the opening scenes have a stylized chrome blue-grey look almost like some kind of Instagram filter has been applied. The clarity and resolution are readily visible in closeups that show the finest details and textures in clothing, stone walls, actors’ faces, or the tight mesh-knit on a ball cap. In one scene where Cam leans over and her long hair dangles in the sunlight, individual strands are sharp and visible. 

With a lot of the filming taking place in the back of the ambulance or inside darkened environments like warehouses or garages, the HDR grade gives the film nice deep blacks and lifelike shadow detail, with black levels that are truly black and noise-free. There are also some really vibrant and saturated reds, as well as the near-constant bright flashing police lights, or the perpetual golden-hour LA skies. 

The big star is Ambulance’s soundtrack, which is presented in a fantastically immersive Dolby TrueHD Atmos format via the Kaleidescape download. While there are tons of the gee-whiz overhead and surround effects, what I really noticed was the terrific audio tracking as sounds moved around, off screen, or overhead. If the camera moves and an object—say, a cutting tool in a garage—travels up into the corner of the screen, the audio clearly follows it there. Traffic that drives by travels well left or right of the screen and passes away, or clearly travels from the front of the room into the back; a baby crying sounds like it’s off in another room; a garage door slides up to the top of the room and then rolls back overhead. 

Then there are all the little ambient sounds and atmospherics like rattles of equipment and jingling sounds inside the ambulance that fill practically every scene, or helicopters passing by and zooming overhead. The Ambulance mix is definitely one that will be enhanced by listening on larger Atmos audio systems, as sounds will more smoothly pan and move around the room.

There are a couple of big shootouts, and gunfire is loud and dynamic, with weapons having clearly different and varied sound based on type, whether pistol, rifle, or shotgun. The gun battles have people shooting and bullets striking all around the room, and the soundtrack delivers deep and fundamental low-bass energy. The soundtrack also boasts what must be the loudest and most immersive presentation of Christopher Cross’s “Sailing” ever featured anywhere. 

If there’s any downfall to the audio, it’s that some dialogue can be a bit difficult to understand or hear, either drowned out by some of the bombast or just recorded too low on set. 

Ultimately, Ambulance is a forgettable movie, and certainly not even ranking amongst Bay’s “best” work. However, it’s action-packed, fast-paced, and just interesting enough to hold your attention. The big treat here is the Atmos soundtrack, which delivers the goods on all counts, and makes for a lot of fun in a well-appointed home theater.