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The Wheelman (2017)

The Wheelman (2017)

Netflix are putting out some impressive originals lately! This is one of them.

It's a story about a wheelman - a driver, tasked with the seemingly simple mission to drive a couple of bank robbers to and from their place of robbery, and then make a drop.

Suddenly the guy who arranged the drop calls and tells him to abandon the other guys, cause they plan to kill him. He calls his handler, but the guy has no idea what's going on. His daughter's home alone, and she calls him telling him she's staying with a friend... who's apparently more than a friend. He says no. His ex-wife calls him. She's taking custody. The first guy calls him again: he's making a buy. He tries to call a buddy to help him out, but no response. He calls his handler for a name. The handler doesn't want to give him the name, but it's clear he knows something...

And for a long time that's all the movie is about: him calling and answering and sending messages on the phone, all the while driving around with 200,000 USD in the trunk that he wants nothing else but to get rid of, and then a third party steps in, and all the while his daughter and him are arguing about comparably trivial things on the phone. Of course that'll go full circle later on.

It might not sound like much of a story, but it's pretty exciting. They capture the essence of the drive. The stress. The uncertainty. The speed. The rumble of engine. They present the threat. The talks are mysterious at first but gradually get more and more intense, as they reveal things one step at a time. Eventually the character figures out enough to arrange a meet... and it ends well.

Well... how does it end? The suspense wells over! It's such a simple idea, but such a well-made movie! Greatness dwells in the details. Give it a watch, if you will.

Frank Grillo (he doesn't even have an in-movie name, he's just The Wheelman) doesn't seem like the greatest dad - though that's a big part of the plot, but he does feel authentic, and like a good driver. He gets emotional too. He does care for the family. Good pick for the role.

He never manages to reach that friend he calls either, which is just a minor detail but also a very refreshing one. Usually they don't leave lose-ends like that simply because they might feel like loose ends (at least I assume that's why). In any good movie loose ends usually get tied together in the end, and if not it feels like a scripting error, but this loose end feels like more than a loose end. It's a dead end. It's a door the character can't get though, and in the end it's still there. It's an appreciated missing plot twist. He tried to call his friend, and things might have turned out very differently if he had reached him, but he didn't, so that's that. What happened to his friend we'll never know. Are they still friends? We'll never know.

Maybe minimalism is coming back in style. I like the artful angles, the anger, and the continuity.

It's one long drive, and though I'm not sure he ever did eat that sandwich it sure was wise to have one waiting. Long night. Great watch.

 rated 4/5: fo shizzle

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