MOVIE REVIEW – Needing money to pay for his wife’s surgery, veteran Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) reluctantly agrees to rob a bank with his adopted brother Danny (Jake Gyllenhaal). When their getaway goes wrong, they hijack an ambulance a la Grand Theft Auto and take a wounded police officer (Jackson White) and an EMT (Eiza González) hostage; a high-speed, then relentless police chase through the streets of Los Angeles ensues. Grand Theft Auto feeling at its best: the Michael Bay film is a definite nod to the Rockstar’s game.

A leopard can’t change its spots, they say: action film director Michael Bay will never direct a minimalist chamber drama. Of course, that’s not why we love him, and the much lower-budgeted but bombastic style of his film The Assault and The Rescue mirrors his old movies – albeit with a heavy dose of Grand Theft Auto. Despite the fact that Bay had orders of magnitude less money at his disposal, it’s the film that has come closest to his career peak, The Rock, in years.

After the self-serving misstep of his last film, 6 Underground, this is an excellent example of how Bayhem can (to some extent) work within tight financial constraints – even within his own category. The premise, taken from the Danish film of the same name, is simple but all the more effective: two brothers, a good-hearted one (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, in unshakable form), a near-psychopath (Jake Gyllenhaal, again superb), a paramedic hostage (Eiza González, a big surprise with her equally flawless performance) and an ambulance, as opposed to the entire Los Angeles police force. On paper, it’s a bank robbery, but the film relatively abandons this territory, as it’s more of a one-car/chase movie like Speed before it, where the chase takes place on the paved freeways of Los Angeles. And because of the constant camera shifts and style, it’s a bit like leaving the “Cinematic” camera mode on in the chase sequences of GTA.

Bayhem… Bayhem never changes…

It’s almost reassuring that Bay’s typical stylistic traits are still there. Events still take place over 24 hours, and clichéd dialogue still abounds (“No one knows this town better than you!”). And, of course, in the style of classic car/chase action movies, everything is still exploding almost constantly, even when it’s pretty unlikely. At the same time, Bay is more willing to “wink” at himself: in a bold meta-move, the two leads refer to previous Michael Bay films. There’s even a change in that Bay’s camera is a little less “dirty” than before, and the drone shots give the frames a dizzying new perspective.

These acrobatic angles actually add a whole new dimension to Bay’s action, and the action is the only reason we’re all here. At times, you wonder how the hell a camera ever fit between the speeding vehicles and the explosions. Meanwhile, the absolutely insane pace is relentless and seldom stops for a moment. “We’re locomotives,” Gyllenhaal’s character shouts at one point, “we don’t stop, ” which sounds like Bay describing his own work ethic. God knows how a man approaching 60 can maintain that level of energy.

Loud and silly

But the film is far from always coherent: the relentless pace and the many cuts often make it hard to follow. On the other hand, the director seems to follow the same philosophy as Christopher Nolan regarding sound mixing: constant thunderous voices are sometimes more important than hearing the dialogue.

Much of the film also pays serious homage to the militarization of the police, which is, let’s say, not very fitting for the current mood of the US. And a lot of the highly simplistic story is terribly silly: a farting dog is one of the main plot points, while someone shouts desperately about his cashmere sweater at a crucial moment. But don’t look for too much logic in many of the characters’ most crucial decisions either; everything just serves to serve the events of an irredeemably predictable story ultimately.

If there’s no new GTA, Michael Bay will make a movie

The Assault Rescue might ease our agony a little while we’re craving the latest Grand Theft Auto or make us want to take another spin on the old ones – especially the recently refreshed GTA V. While the story is still immeasurably silly, we’re used to it all anyway, and with the constant action and chase, the explosions galore and the stylistic cues that are typical of the Bay, we might not even notice it much.

-BadSector-