The Guilty / Ambulance

 

In his two most recent movie releases, Jake Gyllenhaal plays characters on opposite ends of the criminal justice continuum. But both the 9-1-1 dispatcher in Antoine Fuqua's The Guilty (2021) and the serial bank robber in Michael Bay's Ambulance (2022) have tenuous grips on sanity, giving further evidence (along with 2015's Nightcrawler and 2016's Nocturnal Animals) that Gyllenhaal, 43, has become a master of madness.

The Guilty, an adaptation of a 2018 Danish film, is ostensibly a solo performance for Gyllenhaal, as most of his co-stars are off-screen voices of people Gyllenhaal's Joe Baylor is either trying to assist or to detain as he draws conclusions about and misinterprets a domestic disturbance call from a child on the night before he is to appear in court for reasons the viewer only discovers late in the picture.

Gyllenhaal's flinty character's unraveling is distressing to watch; he's a bundle of raw nerves, lashing out at others and tearing at his own feelings of entrapment. And Gyllenhaal eviscerates like no other actor. Fuqua, who directed Gyllenhaal in 2015's Southpaw, pulls an impressive performance from the actor while weaving a compelling redemption story set against a cold L.A. cityscape.

Bay puts the same cityscape to more practical use as Gyllenhaal's Danny Sharp and his adopted brother Will (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) flee from a legion of L.A.'s finest on wheels and in the air during an epic chase after a botched downtown bank robbery.

Against his better judgment, Will joins Danny's crew at the last minute to score enough money to pay for a much-needed operation for his wife (Moses Ingram). Complicating the brothers' escape is an EMT(a terrific Eiza González) whose ambulance they commandeer while trying to escape. Inside the ambulance is a policeman Will had earlier shot while fleeing the bank.

Bay's films are brawny, intricate and excessive, but also often tonally and narratively complex. This is certainly true for Ambulance, which is heavy with characters and their emotional baggage -- some adding comedic spice, others layers of pathos.

While Gyllenhaal and Abdul-Mateen are well-matched as childhood mates who later become brothers, the wattage of Gyllenhaal's performance often outshines others on the screen. Which I suppose is the definition of being first on the call sheet.