L'Ambulance

The Ambulance actually turned out to be a pretty funny, yet bizarre thriller. Sarcastic extrovert, Josh Baker (Eric Roberts in a hilarious role), probably regrets the day he talked to a woman that he felt compelled to introduce himself to, having always seen her on his lunch break. The woman, a diabetic, suddenly collapses in the street, and he is there as she is carried away in a hearse-turned-ambulance with a mysterious green glowing light in the back. She gets in the ambulance, and as Josh later discovers, she never arrives at any of the local hospitals.

Josh is convinced something is awry, but doesn't pay too much attention to it at first (in fact, as bizarre as the story becomes, he's so matter-of-fact about everything. Him and everyone else). The more people he confronts about the strange ambulance that conveniently seems to arrive when he's talking to them but never seems to be around when he needs to prove it exists, the more likely those people are going to wind up dead because of the ambulance (actually, because of the people driving it, who are the goons for a strange doctor who is using his victims for a strange medical experiment).

Josh's only hope, besides himself (a guy who will soon be quite immune to pain as he gets hit by cars, jumps through barred doors, is drugged, and finally beat by a junkyard gang), is the red head cop Sandra Malloy who turns up after her boss, Spencer (James Earl Jones in an even funnier part as the disbeliever), turns up missing. And if they don't act fast, the ambulance will show up for them, and the only chance of stopping it will be lost.

All in all, the story is bizarre, but the movie is much more of a comedy than a thriller in sort of that 'After Hours' style of comedy. Josh appears to be absolutely crazy to those around him, babbling about some weird ambulance that is out to murder people. But he seems to dismiss the seriousness of it, just hoping to save the girl and get through the day, and not much else. Eric Roberts and Red Buttons, too, made a good team, albeit a brief one with Red Buttons as Elias Zacharai, the fast-talking newspaper reporter who befriends Josh and has similar convictions about the hospital staff trying to drug up patients and keep them against his will, but in that senile old man kind of way. He plays the reporter that wants the exclusive story on the ambulance.

Loosen up and give it a try. Though cheap, it's got some good action sequences, a decent plot, and is just overall, pretty funny. Except, for maybe the ending. It was just too easy.

"The Ambulance" is not really a "black comedy", although it does have moments of dark humor throughout. It really is sort of a hybrid comedy-suspense film. Eric Roberts carries things as the perplexed wannabe lover boy, while James Earl Jones comes and goes as a perplexed, somewhat irrational police detective. The movie is not overall terrific, but there are some memorable scenes, especially relating to the ambulance itself. Overall for a B movie, "The Ambulance" delivers enough entertainment value to recommend seeing it, however I doubt multiple viewings would be that rewarding. .......................... - MERK

More and more I love the work of writer/director Larry Cohen and I can only encourage people to check out his versatile imagination. "The Ambulance" is less ambitious, comical and outrageous than some of Cohen's more famous achievements (like "God Told me To", "It's Alive" or "Q – the Winged Serpent") but it definitely is a well-elaborated and entertaining B-movie. Once again, Cohen succeeds in turning a familiar and every-day topic into an exciting and rather suspenseful thriller. Inconspicuously and well organized, a group of fake nurses and doctors drive around New York in an old-type of ambulance, picking up diabetics that suffer from a 'sudden attack'. After they're brought into the cool conveyance, they disappear and no one ever hears from them again. The womanizing comic-book artist Josh Baker coincidentally stumbles upon this suspicious organization when a broad he's been stalking for a long time is taken away in front of him. His search for the girl results in a tense and involving movie, filled with ingenious plot-twists and adorably eccentric New York-characters. The screenplay is very clever, the dialogues are well written and there isn't a dull moment in the entire movie. 'The Ambulance' isn't a horror film so the deaths aren't as sadistic as in other Cohen films and there's also the lack of pungent social criticism. Still, this is a truly cool movie that deserves a wider audience. Judging by his performance here, I'd say it's unjust that Eric Roberts' career went to waste so badly. He looks a little goofy but his lines are exhilarating and his bad-boy charisma definitely works for the character he plays. Even more amusing are the supporting roles like, for example, James Earl Jones as the weird and over-stressed copper and Red Buttons as the persistent journalist. Check it out!

"The ambulance" is perhaps not what people call a great movie.But it's sure much fun to watch!Its black humor is priceless.All the male actors overplay,Eric Roberts ,James Earl Jones and Eric Braeden camp it up and give the viewer the feeling of watching a cartoon (Roberts' escape from the ambulance) or reading a comic strip :anyway ,Roberts makes comic books ("They are not what they used to be "says cop Jones ).The director knows only one tempo:accelerated and ,for lack of subtlety ,there's never a dull moment.And the villain (Braeden) does believe he works for the greater good of humanity !And anyway won't his patient be in perfect health when he dies?

I hadn't seen "The Ambulance" for quite awhile, but I had a good time re-visiting it and this was one of the first works I had seen of filmmaker Larry Cohen. It might not be one of Cohen's highly regarded pieces, but "The Ambulance" is a fun, gripping slice of paranoia with an injection of black humour. The concept is audaciously ludicrous and Eric Roberts' ham-fisted lead performance is full of energy (and lets not forget that hypnotic mullet when in motion), along with James Earl Jones small, but cynically meaty role as a rundown detective on the edge. Moving at a fast, uniformed tempo, Cohen's boldly tight direction never lets up (where he knows how to shoot on location for maximum effect) and his writing manages to stay one step ahead as you get pulled along for the dangerous ride with its engineered thrills. There always seems to be some sort of threat at every turn for Robert's character and this keeps it excitingly intense, if daftly over-the-top with comedic results. Especially its cheesy climax in a night club with some berserk ambulance driving and of course its irony-laced revelation that you won't see coming. Roberts' character sure didn't. The plot takes on a modern approach to its mad doctor formula, staying quite dark and full of mystery in the chase/or race to uncover the truth while also trying to convince people of the threat. Roberts' plays Josh Baker a comic book artist who one day goes about asking out the women of his dreams (a stunning Janine Turner) who he sees everyday out on the streets of New York. An incident sees her collapsing with Josh by her side and then a mysterious vintage ambulance appears and whisks her off. So he goes to one hospital after another with no such luck. He thinks there might just be more to it, as he uncovers and now he's running for his life with no one believing him there's a phantom ambulance kidnapping people. Eric Braeden is suitably clinical as "the doctor" that's behind the kidnappings and Megan Gallagher offers good support as a police officer we can trust. Red Buttons is enjoyably snappy and Cohen regular James Dixon shows up too.