Michael Bay’s Ambulance has been heralded by many fans and critics as a return to form for the celebrated action director. Recently, PopCulture.com sat down with Ambulance actor Garret Dillahunt, in honor of the movie’s 4k Ultra HD, Blu-ray, DVD release on June 14, who shared a little of his experience working on the film. “He’s got a vision. He’s got a big vision, doesn’t he? And he’s got the whole movie in his head,” Dillahunt said. “It’s high-energy, it’s high-octane, and it’s creating on the fly. It’s a lot of things I like,” he continued, then quipping, “He’s an intense dude, but I can handle intense dudes.”
Ambulance stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as brothers who wind up hijacking an ambulance and taking one of its EMTs (Eiza González) hostage, after a bank robbery-gone-wrong ends with one of them shooting a cop. Dillahunt plays Captain Monroe, of the LAPD Special Investigations Section, who is tasked with pursuing the men and saving the hostages. The film has been praised for its use of utilizing drone cameras, which isn’t new but brilliantly elevated, complete with fast-paced, sweeping shots. It’s not unprecedented for an action film of this caliber to employ the use of drone cameras, Dillahunt points out, but Bay’s approach to Ambulance is certainly notable for the manner in which he used them to capture scenes.
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“I think there’s been drones in a lot of movies. I don’t know that they’ve been manipulated by someone this talented,” the actor said of Bay. “He had a pretty incredible drone team there. But I mean, at least for me, I guess I can’t speak for the other actors, I didn’t particularly notice the drones. I just was doing my thing. That’s their job, is to film the thing. I just play the scene. They can film it however they want.” The , “And watching the movie back, there’s some just amazing things that kid did with that stuff. It was wild to watch him on set because he’s got his VR goggles on and his little controller, and he’s just standing there stock-still. And then you look at the monitor and it’s like he’s Superman flying through the air. It’s beyond me. And then you feel old.”
As for the notion that the drone cameras were seemingly whizzing around actors, Dillahunt says he found it to be much less intrusive than audiences would think. “Well, I think they are, but there was cameras all over the place. There’s all kinds of stuff. There’s stuff planted in the cars,” he said. “I think he just wants a lot of material that he can cut to. “
The former continued, “And what I really dug about it is, I think some people would feel like, ‘Oh, it’s just too much. It’s camera tricks. It’s this, it’s that.’ But for me, when I saw Ambulance, every single decision he made about them built the tension in the story. I didn’t see any superfluous use of those things. It seemed very much part of ratcheting up the tension, ratcheting it up and setting the scene. And I enjoyed working with him, but my respect for him went up even more after seeing it. I just thought, ‘Oh, he’s aware. He’s aware of what he’s doing.’
Ambulance is now available to own on 4k Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and DVD. Among the special features included are behind-the-scenes featurettes on the making of the film, as well as deleted scenes. The film is also available digitally from Amazon Prime Video, iTunes, and more.
