Ambulancen

A quite uninteresting movie.

Two criminals uses a ambulance as their escape vehicle. Of course this ambulance keeps an important role throughout the movie.

This movie reminds a lot of the whole bunch of action comedies, that Denmark has produced in the last six-seven years. There is almost nothing new in this one. Just the fact that Thomas Bo Larsen once again plays a bad criminal says a lot about the lack of originality in this movie.

The movie is actually quite short. Aprox. 1 hour and 15 minutes. But since the movie was very uninteresting, I was quite pleased that it was not any longer.

I give it four out of ten.

Two brothers rob a bank to have enough money to get their cancer-ridden mother to a private clinic in Germany, where she could possibly be saved. So it's a noble course for the crime and the subsequent chase of the ambulance the two brothers take hostage during their escape. But is it okay to endanger the life the stroke patient and the female intern for their course? - The trailer for this film suggests it to be an action comedy - where in fact the film really never decides whether it wants to be a family-drama, a witty comedy or an action flick. The idea to limit the film to the ambulance and it's four persons is interesting but ultimately it also limits the characterization of the main protagonists. You'll have to take their work for their ambitions, their life-stories and their motives. Which sometimes does not really work - at least for me. The action is marvelous - in my opinion, the filmmakers should have sticked to straight drama and/or thrilling action. The comedy did take a bit of the intended impact. (P.S.: Extremely nice bleeding effects - VERY convincing. Nope, it does not really matter in the context of the film - but struck me heavy when I watched the DVD. Oh yeah - there is a DVD with English subtitles available in Danmark - see laserdisken.dk for example.)

How do you make a movie interesting that plays in a vehicle most of the time? A vehicle that is mentioned in the title in this case ... well if you think that is not an easy task, you are right to think that. But the movie makes it almost look seemless! The characters and their ordeal/situation is sometimes tough to follow or understand/empathize ... but the actors make it work.

The script also seems tight enough to make you forget about any story issues or continuity/logic error that may occur. A story about people not being able to get what they want - and resorting to drastic measures ... not always a good idea, right?

Thomas Bo Larsen displays yet another character as an imbecile criminal from Copenhagen. The movie doesn't bring anything new to the Danish movies and he's seen in this role dozens of times before. The action scenes are not many and not so entertaining at all. It simply needs action to have at least something worth seeing.

The best scene of the film is the opening scene from whereon everything goes wrong.

It's hard to see what the movie wants to contribute with. After I saw it I felt a bit of having wasted my own time on it. The twists the movie tries to give are way to easy to predict.

The whole plot of the movie is way better on paper that on film.

Because this is too much predictable with many clichés and no suspense at all. I watched this one pushing the fast forward button, because I was so in a hurry to finish watching this - I repeat - so predictable topic which brings absolutely no surprise at all. But directing is sometimes offbeat, with unusual shots from time to time. That's so rare to watch a fast paced but boring film, especially so short length feature; only 72 mn.