A preposterous pile-up of explosions, jargon, snark, and dizzying flipping & swooping drone shots that you just know director Michael Bay wishes he’d had access to for the entire duration of his career. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is Will, a decorated soldier and all-around good guy in a bad situation. His wife needs surgery, and his insurance ain’t gonna cover it. Enter his adoptive brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhall), a fast-talking bank robber who invites him onto a major score alongside a real rogues gallery of weird assholes you won’t have to remember — because the whole thing goes sideways, and in desperation the two brothers wind up hijacking the titular vehicle, with super-awesome EMT Cam (Eiza Gonzales) and a poor rookie cop they shot along the way along for the ride. It’s a hostage situation, a long car chase, AND an ongoing medical emergency all rolled into one. Cop cars crash and flip and occasionally explode, additional weird characters keep wandering in on both sides, and things just keep escalating for most of the two hour-plus running time. It does continue the Michael Bay trademark I recall from the TRANSFORMERS flicks of the occasional interjection of strange character beats; the musical moment Will and Danny share with a pair of Airpods as they’re trying to calm down on the road jumps to mind. Gyllenhall mixes up sleazy charm with bouts of furious shouting as the situation deteriorates, while most everyone else is given a single note to play — though it’s not like anyone puts in a BAD performance. It’s actually nice to see Gonzales given not just a straightforwardly heroic role — she’s THE unambiguous “good guy” in this story — but also one where the audience isn’t invited to leer at her. That’s not the kind of thing that’s on this movie’s mind in the least bit; it’s all about the limits of trust and the consequences of violence (though it does take pains to assure you there’s not any REAL consequences for most of these flipped & crashed cars, which I found amusing and ironic). Glad I made the time for it on this last day it was showing locally; don’t think those head-spinning drone shots would’ve had quite the same effect on TV.
