Ambulance (In Theaters April 8)
Director Michael Bay remakes a Danish movie into this overstuffed actioner featuring the director’s trademark odd camera angles and frenetically revolving shots. Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II portray adopted brothers Danny and Will, respectively. Danny is a career criminal, so when his straightlaced brother Will needs $230,000 for an experimental treatment, Danny concocts a bank robbery with a potential $32 million take. When the heist goes South, Jake and Will take refuge in an ambulance along with its feisty EMT (Eiza González), and her patient, a critically injured rookie cop (Jackson White).
It’s all a flimsy excuse for a two-hour patrol car/helicopter/ambulance chase through the streets and freeways of Los Angeles. Though a swirling camera is generally ill-advised during dialog, Bay shrugs off such concerns. The chase scenes occasionally benefit from a fresh take on the proceedings, but as this 2-hour-15-minute romp passes the 90-minute mark, many viewers will have motion sickness. (Lisa Miller)
Breaking Bread (Cohen Media Group DVD)
Nof Atamna-Ismaeel was the first Arab Muslim to be a winner in Israel’s popular Master Chef contest. Leveraging the positive publicity, Atamna-Ismaeel organized a food festival in Haifa that brought together chefs from diverse backgrounds, Jews and Arab, to cook and share.
The documentary of those events, Breaking Bread, features delicious looking Levantine dishes but is infused with the social mission of building bridges across barriers of politics, religion and history. Haifa was well chosen as a relatively tolerant city by some accounts and a showplace for the surprising heterogeneity of Israel. The stories told by the chefs interviewed for Breaking Bread are as varied as the dishes they prepared. (David Luhrssen)
Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (In Theaters April 8)
This Sonic sequel further mines the Sega video game. Players who recall the “Green Emerald” will find it’s now a gem of contention, prized for its Universe-controlling properties. Directed by returning Sonic devotee Jeff Fowler, the film brings back Jim Carrey as villainous Dr. Robotnik. Carrey’s fixed smirk is accented by Dr. Robotic’s huge mustache as he unleashes a revenge plot to take out Sonic the Hedgehog (rendered in CGI—voice reprised by Ben Schwartz). Idris Elba and Colleen O’Shaughnessey intone animated characters, Knuckles the echidna and Tails the fox. One look at the trailer reveals the film’s breakneck pace along with rapid cuts and jarring sound effects. Grounding Sonic emotionally, James Marsden appears as the hedgehog’s surrogate dad, dispensing fatherly advice. (Lisa Miller)
Soumaya (IndiePix DVD)
A SWAT team raids Soumaya’s apartment on suspicion that her work at a mosque ties her to jihadist militants. They find nothing, but she is dismissed afterward from her airport security job on false accusations of “gross negligence.” She worked at the airport for 14 years. A lawyer convinces her to fight her dismissal.
Soumaya is about the particular situation of French Muslims, under scrutiny after the shocking attacks by Islamist militants. The film touches on French policies surrounding the wearing of religious garb in public and the conflict between French secularism and religious faith. Police violence, the abuse of profiling the role of media in shaping misperceptions about our world are examined. Soumaya tells a complicated story involving several perspectives within the Muslim community. Directors Ubaydah Abu-Usayd and Waheed Khan makes\ judicious use of editing to establish his settings within a low budget. The screenplay is compelling. (David Luhrssen)
