The Ambulance Movie Review

The presence of Eric Roberts in a movie like Larry Cohen's The Ambulance shows how his career has changed from the heady days when he was an Oscar contender. The Ambulance has all the trappings of an old-fashioned mystery: Roberts plays a cartoonist who falls for a mystery woman (Janine Turner) on the street. Before she passes out and is taken away in an ambulance, she slips him the vital clue that she's a diabetic. Yep, it turns out that mad doctor Eric Braeden is abducting all the diabetics he can and selling them for medical research. Larry Cohen clearly doesn't want you to think about that premise too long, and energetic Roberts won't LET you in any case. Still, The Ambulance has a great femme cop (Megan Gallagher), an even better nutty cop (James Earl Jones), and the Oscar-winning, scene-stealing Red Buttons as a wily old reporter who tries to help our poor driven hero. Return of the Killer Tomatoes! The Lift, The Refrigerator, and now The Ambulance. What's next?

1990 (R) 95m/C Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, Megan Gallagher, Richard Bright, Janine Turner, Eric (Hans Gudegast) Braeden, Red Buttons, Laurene Landon, Jill Gatsby, Nicholas Chinlund; D: Larry Cohen; W: Larry Cohen; C: Jacques Haitkin. VHS, LV, Closed Caption