{"id":20179686,"date":"2025-03-05T07:30:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T15:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.metrosiliconvalley.com\/?p=20179686"},"modified":"2025-03-04T23:18:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-05T07:18:25","slug":"the-accidental-getaway-driver-breaks-new-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metrosiliconvalley.com\/the-accidental-getaway-driver-breaks-new-ground\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Accidental Getaway Driver\u2019 Breaks New Ground"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The sub-sub-genre of Vietnamese-American crime dramas is a small pigeonhole indeed. It would seem that filmmaker Sing J. Lee\u2019s The Accidental Getaway Driver<\/em>\u2014a Directing Award winner at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival just now getting its first run theatrical debut\u2014has the field pretty much to itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vietnamese immigrant senior Long Ma (TV and movie regular Hiep Tran Nghia) is at his Orange County home late one night, dressed in pajamas, when he gets a phone call from an acquaintance named Tay. Tay\u2014played by Saigon native actor Dustin Nguyen as a smoothie with the cool nerve of a career desperado\u2014needs a ride for himself, plus a pair of his pals who have just escaped from county jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long thinks it over for a second. Then Tay pulls out a handgun and the foursome takes off in Long\u2019s car for a meandering midnight cruise through dusty streets and cheap motel rooms. No one talks much at first, amid director Sing J. Lee\u2019s terse mise-en-scene (co-written by Lee and Christopher Chen). Potentially violent plot turns begin to occur at the slowed-down pace of real life, as seen through a film noir kaleidoscope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Long\u2019s dilemma, of course, is one of the most familiar in American crime movies. Unnerved by Tay\u2019s description of the time when one of the escapees, Aden (Dali Benssalah), tortured a kidnap victim with a blowtorch in the backseat of a getaway car, Long clams up and does what he is told. The hoods are trying, at this late hour, to get hold of fake passports and leave the country. But it\u2019s obvious they don\u2019t have the brains or luck to pull it off. Where does that leave the old man?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contemporary audiences don\u2019t meet a character like Long Ma very often. The cinematic tale of an elderly Vietnamese man trying to reconcile memories of his homeland\u2019s turbulent history with his struggle as a lonely, overlooked California newcomer is already unusual enough. Further, Accidental Getaway Driver<\/em>\u2019s lethal setting is nowhere nearly quite as \u201ccamera-ready\u201d as a typical lightweight feel-good flick about, say, crazy rich Asians or the cross-cultural dating scene. When the scenario suddenly adds \u201caccessory to a felony\u201d to Long\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9, something\u2019s gotta give.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his feature-film debut, filmmaker Lee charts an uncustomary course. For a story involving kidnapping, assault and battery and false imprisonment, driver Long\u2019s ordeal takes a surprisingly philosophical turn in the last half. It could easily be mistaken for an adapted stage play, poised uneasily between a sugary SoCal lifestyle flick and a formulaic Fast & Furious<\/em> wannabe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As driver Long\u2019s back story is revealed, we learn that he was a lieutenant colonel in the South Vietnamese army\u2014i.e., ARVN, the losing side\u2014during the 1950s\u2013\u201970s war, and is now separated from his wife and children. Long\u2019s face, his downcast expression and his lengthy, aching silences tell us more about him than any amount of expository talk. Almost all the dialogue between Long and his captor Tay is in Vietnamese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actor Hiep\u2019s performance, a one-note symphony of regret, is matched step for step by Nguyen\u2019s Tay. Actor-filmmaker Nguyen is a Vietnamese immigrant veteran of A-list multiplex fare as well as Viet-Am crossover projects in festivals. In Accidental<\/em> the bad guys taking the old man for a ride fall into three familiar categories: Tay, simpatico but frustrated; Aden, the cold, hard killer; and Eddie (actor Phi Vu), the impatient, brutal kid. There\u2019s a $50,000 reward for turning in the escapees. Tay himself did not escape from county jail. Decisions need to be made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not quite a bare-knuckle actioner but far from being a carjack weepie, The Accidental Getaway Driver<\/em> may be the missing link that connects the once-flourishing Vietnamese domestic film industry to Hollywood\u2019s current trends. With its hard-earned straight face it could easily be called a modern-day melange of Collateral<\/em> and The Petrified Forest<\/em>. This one is worth the trip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opens March 7 at the AMC Eastridge 15, 2190 Eastridge Loop, San Jose. 408.274.2274.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Filmmaker Sing J. Lee\u2019s \u2018The Accidental Getaway Driver\u2019\u2014a Directing Award winner at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival\u2014is just now getting its first run theatrical debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14789,"featured_media":20179689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n