Ambulance

Michael Bay remade the 2005 Danish film Ambulancen without watching it or reading its screenplay, on purpose. What came out is longer and far more crowded: the Danish original ran 76 minutes. Stuck at home during the pandemic shutdown, Bay sold the project to Universal as a small film and finished it in downtown Los Angeles in 38 days. He says he shot 90 to 120 setups a day where the industry norm is 20 to 30. That unbroken aerial movement is not a computer effect either: much of it was captured on first person view drones flown by Drone Racing League pilots wearing head mounted displays. The helicopter chase down the Los Angeles River was never in the script; Bay invented it over a weekend when two helicopters became available. The real suspense sits in the surgery inside the moving vehicle, not the pursuit. Eiza González prepared for three months with firefighters, paramedics and surgeons, then rode a rented ambulance to learn to work while it moved. A good fit if you treat the camera as a means of travel rather than a cutting trick, and want the medical improvisation in the box to be the main event. Not for viewers who tire of restless imagery; almost nothing here is a locked off shot.