Editor’s Be aware: This assessment was initially printed in the course of the 2023 Sundance Movie Competition. Utopia releases “The Unintended Getaway Driver” in theaters on Friday, February 28, 2025.
Within the first third of “The Unintended Getaway Driver” you would possibly assume you’re in for the movie of the pageant at Sundance 2023. The setup is straightforward and suspenseful: Lengthy (Hiệp Trần Nghĩa), an aged Vietnamese immigrant who works as a driver is paid double for a late night time project that seems to be about retaining three escaped prisoners forward of the regulation. When Tây (Dustin Nguyen), one of many convicts, factors a gun at him to stop him from bailing when he needs to get out, the strain ratchets as much as the breaking level.
However “The Unintended Getaway Driver” isn’t the movie of the pageant. And although the strain ratchets up there close to the start, that’s as excessive because it goes for the entire film. As a substitute, it’s merely a really promising first function from Sing J. Lee, who’s brimming with concepts however might need labored a bit of extra rigorously to present them focus. When it begins, you assume you’re in for the second coming of Michael Mann’s “Collateral,” the anxiety-level excessive and cinematographer Michael Cambio Fernandez’s night time images supple and sinuous. It’s spectacular the sheer variety of angles he and Lee discover to movie Hiệp and the late ’90s Toyota he’s driving round Southern California, making an attempt to not anger the lads holding him hostage.
What Lee is aiming for is definitely larger in objective than “Collateral.” Tây, the convict who factors the gun at Lengthy and employed him initially, is a fellow Vietnamese immigrant. He sits within the entrance seat, all the higher to maintain Lengthy beneath shut watch, so he doesn’t make a bolt for it or sign the police. Tây feels genuinely menacing at first. Nguyen isn’t referred to as “the Clint Eastwood of Vietnam” for nothing, and this movie’s producers, Bond caretakers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, would do properly to think about him for a future 007 film. However his laborious floor melts away over the course of the movie’s 116-minute runtime till he turns into one thing much more advanced, like a John Ford antihero who’s finished horrible issues however is in search of a path to redemption.
Tây is in the end the center of “The Unintended Getaway Driver,” which does really feel like a little bit of a bait-and-switch given that he’s not the title character. Lengthy is so guarded for thus lengthy that it’s a bit of bit tougher to attach with him till the movie’s very finish. He’s so afraid of his scenario, to not point out nonetheless processing many years of heartache (he’s been separated from his household for years after he objected to his daughter’s fiance), that he’s, rightly, powerful to get to know. It’s an opacity that’s outright mirrored in Lee’s directorial alternative at occasions to place Hiệp in such excessive close-up that the decrease fringe of the body cuts off the underside half of his face. It’s like he’s peering out over the body, wishing that he might disguise beneath it and escape the phobia of his scenario.
The opposite two convicts are far more thinly drawn within the script from Lee and Christopher Chen. Aden (Dali Benssalah) is essentially the most violent and risky, with Benssalah giving a Joker-like monologue that for all its bravado truly does present some actual ache beneath. And Eddie (Phi Vũ) is in his early 20s and nonetheless as adrift and unsure as a baby. They’re all kinds, and, oddly, the three convicts line up fairly carefully with the three escaped prisoners in each Richard Boleslawski and Ford’s variations of “Three Godfathers.”
That results in some concern whereas watching it that Lengthy would possibly in the end have his edges sanded down and be revealed to be a lovable previous softie, which is at all times the temptation when having an 80-year-old as your title character. However although Lee interrogates Lengthy’s ache and interior energy by means of intriguing flashbacks to his childhood in Vietnam and visions of the household he’s now estranged from, he avoids the extra cloying catharsis that may have appeared apparent. Lee’s a filmmaker with clearly sturdy instincts, and nothing about the place “The Unintended Getaway Driver” finally ends up is trite. He’s deeply attuned to the nuances of what it means to be an immigrant, and a few scenes close to the top communicate to an understanding of the ability of neighborhood that one other director wouldn’t have been in a position to provide.
The issue is that, after that early peak of a primary act, “The Unintended Getaway Driver” doesn’t have a lot stress. You don’t actually purchase that Lengthy’s in profound hazard after a degree, even when Aden’s pointing a gun at his head. There should have been a approach to make the movie in regards to the rising bond between Lengthy and Tây whereas retaining the suspense sustained at a excessive stage. That doesn’t occur, and it makes the movie really feel undercooked even because it does provide real moments of connection and even poetry.
However any driver is aware of that the vacation spot is the factor. And “The Unintended Getaway Driver” is promising sufficient to be enthusiastic about wherever Lee may be heading subsequent.
Grade: B-
“The Unintended Getaway Driver” premiered on the 2023 Sundance Movie Competition. Utopia releases the movie Friday, February 2025.