Ambulance is a 2022 American action thriller heist film co-produced and directed by Michael Bay and written by Chris Fedak.

It stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as adoptive brothers who hijack an ambulance after robbing a bank and take a paramedic (Eiza González) and a police officer (Jackson White) hostage.

[2] Afghanistan Marine veteran Will Sharp, desperately needing money for his wife Amy's surgery, reaches out to Danny, his adoptive brother and a life-long criminal.

After a chase that leads them into an alleyway, Cam makes a desperate attempt to escape using a fire extinguisher but is quickly recaptured by Danny.

Monroe, unaware of the surgery's success, moves forward with the operation and prepares to snipe Will and Danny without negotiating for Cam's life.

On Papi's orders, his son, Roberto, drives an empty ambulance towards the police after filling it with C-4 explosives and deploys machine guns on separate cars to cause additional damage, which ends up wounding Monroe in the crossfire.

[4] Two years later, the directing duo Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales replaced Noyce,[5] but this version of the film never entered production.

"[7] He pitched an idea to Donna Langley, the Chairwoman of Universal Pictures, saying he wanted to direct a "small" film focusing on the tension between characters trapped in a claustrophobic setting.

[9][12]: 13:47–14:06  The following month, the film was announced with Gyllenhaal and Dylan O'Brien in talks to star as the two adoptive brothers who hijack the ambulance and Eiza González in negotiations to play the paramedic.

[12]: 0:49–0:55  To prepare for the role, González spent three months "working intimately with firefighters, EMTs, surgeons, [and] everyone around the medical care system."

Supervising location manager Rob Gibson obtained driving permits for numerous streets and freeway corridors in the city using his close relationship with FilmLA.

A considerable amount of the film was shot using first-person view drones by LightCraft, a company discovered by executive producer Michael Kase after seeing their footage of the top of the Wilshire Grand Center.

[29][25]: 26:57–28:24  The production also hired real trauma surgeons, firefighters, SWAT teams, snipers, undercover SIS members, and 52 LAPD officers for the shoot.

[30][25]: 15:35–16:18 On the first day of filming, while shooting footage of the ambulance driving on a freeway, Bay noticed several patrol officers and three motorcycle cops.

He asked them if they wanted to star in the film, to which they agreed, and used the opportunity to sweet talk the officers into creating a rolling roadblock, allowing them to close the freeway for free instead of paying the average $350–400 thousand cost.

[31][32] On Garret Dillahunt's first day on set, the crew was able to secure access to an area featuring the Los Angeles City Hall, the Times Mirror Square building, and the LAPD headquarters for a mere 19 minutes worth of natural light to film.

Instead of hiring stuntmen for the sequence, Gyllenhaal was actually hanging off the side of the ambulance's door and shooting at the helicopters himself while an excited Abdul-Mateen live-streamed the event to his friend as he was driving.

"[48] Entertainment Weekly said the film looked like "pure chaos, thanks to a lot of quick camera cuts, loads of gunfire, a high-speed ambulance chase, and Jake Gyllenhaal doing the absolute most with his bank robber character.

[50] Entertainment Weekly wrote, "The latest trailer for the chaotic heist-gone-wrong film is peak Michael Bay, with everything you could possibly want from an action flick".

Shawn Robbins from Boxoffice Pro said Universal had "done a fine job reaching its target male audience with significant promotion during major sporting events over the past few months.

Commercials were generally aired during sporting events such as NFL and NBA games, men's college basketball, Super Bowl LVI, and the Winter Olympics, as well as re-runs of The Big Bang Theory.

[52] Variety's Rebecca Rubin believed the "comparatively lean production budget ... could soften the blow in the event the film doesn't connect with audiences.

[58] Rubin deemed the film a box-office bomb, citing its release in a crowded marketplace, lukewarm reviews, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on moviegoing habits, and the action genre's steady decline in popularity.

The website's critical consensus reads, "At top speed and with sirens wailing, Ambulance comes riding to the rescue for audiences facing an emergency shortage of Michael Bay action thrills.

John Nugent of Empire said the filmmaker's "tribute to the emergency services (which involves blowing several of them up) is noisy, messy and frequently absurd — yet still somehow his most gleefully entertaining effort in at least a decade.

While Scheck called it a "decently premised B-movie stretched out to an interminable 136 minutes", Leigh said it was "hard to resist" and that audiences "would miss Bay if he vanished from the Hollywood menagerie.

TheWrap's Robert Abele found Gyllenhaal's acting unconvincing and "over-the-top" and Abdul-Mateen's character a "poorly conceived good guy in over his head."

"[73] A. O. Scott of The New York Times was positive about the performances but found the story predictable: "It all ends up pretty much where you expect it will, but the actors do a good job of seething and emoting under pressure, and Gyllenhaal does a volatile, charming sociopath thing that isn't as annoying as it might be.

"[74] Tim Grierson, for Screen Daily, said the film "spotlights [Bay]'s visual panache alongside his considerable storytelling weaknesses.

"[76] The Evening Standard's Charlotte O'Sullivan noted that the film picks up once the characters enter the ambulance, adding that "the B-movie [Gyllenhaal] and Bay have cobbled together is genuinely diverting.