Released in 1990, but filmed in 1989, THE AMBULANCE is a movie that is very much of its time. The fashions, score, and cast match up perfectly with the type of low-budget, independent action movie that would soon start going directly to VHS. That is not at all a knock on the movie when the cast that includes Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, and Red Buttons get to chomp down on some deliciously loopy Larry Cohen dialogue.
Comic book artist Josh (Roberts) spends his lunch break on Manhattan streets pining for beautiful stranger Cheryl (Janine Turner). On the day he finally talks to her (by laying down some truly terrible and aggressive pick up lines), she collapses on the sidewalk and is picked up by a vintage ambulance before he can find out her last name. Obsessed with finding her, Josh goes to the hospital the supposed paramedics told him they were taking Cheryl, only to find out no one by her description was brought in. After trips to several hospitals result in a big fat zero, Josh goes to the cops only to be thought a nut by a detective (Jones) and a beat cop (Megan Gallagher) who put up with his paranoid bullshit longer than most police officers I’ve dealt with in my life would be willing to do so. Eventually, Josh teams up with an aging investigative reporter (Buttons) and the reluctant cops he has roped into investigating his goofy conspiracy theory to find out not just what happened to Cheryl, but also why the ambulance is prowling the streets of New York for diabetics.
Watching THE AMBULANCE in 2020 is one of those rare experiences where a thirty-year-old movie both holds up as a time capsule of cringe-worthy movie scores (cue the wailing saxophone) and regrettable fashions (Roberts’ over-sized suits and glorious mullet) but also as a legitimately idiosyncratic work of canny genre filmmaking. This is not surprising when you consider a genius like Larry Cohen was at the helm as writer/director.
My fanboy worship of Larry Cohen is well documented, but THE AMBULANCE holds a special place in my heart. In my view, it is his last really good film as a director. He directed a couple of more movies after THE AMBULANCE and wrote several, but this really feels like his last hurrah as an indie maverick who specialized in taking well-worn genre tropes and turning them on their heads to create something singular. Sure, it is not as well done as his classics like IT’S ALIVE, GOD TOLD ME TO, BONE, Q, or THE STUFF. But it is a fun flick that understands how ridiculous the plot is and uses that funhouse framework to deliver delightfully goofy turns by the cast, a running joke about a cop (Larry Dixon) who nurses an angry streak about looking like Jughead from Archie comics, a legitimate supporting turn from Stan Lee (playing a silly movie version of himself), and honestly impressive stunt work that includes a man trapped to a gurney rolling down a busy street at high speeds.
It is fascinating to consider what THE AMBULANCE might have looked like in lesser hands. It’s easy to imagine a dour, sloppily made version of this movie starring Michael Dudikoff or Jeff Speakman. But thankfully, Cohen held on to this script and signed on a committed character actor in a leading man’s packaging like Roberts. The result is a polished but bonkers bit of over-the-top thriller/comedy fun. Roberts throws himself around gritty New York locations in a physically comedic performance that recalls EVIL DEAD 2-era Bruce Campbell. Jones and Gallagher seem to follow Roberts’ go-for-broke turn with their own loose, smirking performances while Buttons hangs around doing the same material he had been doing for fifty years—yet it all works together in some sort of miraculous alchemy. I dare you to find another movie where the cast is clearly having as much fun as they are in THE AMBULANCE.
For a movie that includes so many plot points about medical experimentation on people, beatings, cold-blooded murder, and a protagonist who is essentially a creepy stalker with charisma—THE AMBULANCE is incredibly charming. The chemistry between Roberts, Jones, Gallagher, and Buttons is a hoot and it manages to combine the pulpy plotting of Cohen at his most outrageous with some straight-faced spoofing of the crowded, low-budget thriller market that the movie slotted easily into. THE AMBULANCE fit nicely on the video store shelf next to the movies it was mocking, but its self-aware sense of humor is why we’re still talking about it thirty years down the road when the movies it gently ribbed have been long forgotten.
Tags: Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, Janine Turner, Larry Cohen, Larry Dixon, Megan Gallagher, Red Buttons, Stan Lee, The Ambulance
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