British-born director Sing J. Lee’s feature-length directorial debut is based on a true kidnapping that occurred in Southern California in 2016, but to call The Accidental Getaway Driver a biopic or a treatise on crime in America is to misunderstand Lee’s moving and philosophical drama, which uses the outline of that event to convey something much more personal and quiet. The film is indeed set in Southern California, with sojourns to a remembered Vietnam and a dreamt-about former life. Time-wise, it’s contemporary, but time plays more than a structural role in this film.

Clocks wind down, a hazard light tick-tocks on and off, thieves and an old man sit in a motel whiling away the hours by tossing sunflower seeds at a cup, and someone begs a friend to “listen to this old man”. There is too much time in The Accidental Getaway Driver and there is too little. There’s time that will drive you mad as it crawls along and time that will pᴀss by you so quickly, you’ll look up at the mirror in your car and realize just how much you missed.

Hiep Tran Nghia Magnificently Conveys How Everyone’s Time Comes

Long Ma Has Brief Moments Of Courage

Vietnamese actor Hiep Tran Nghia, who only started acting at the age of 50, stars as Long Ma, a driver who accepts a late-night offer to ferry three gentlemen to an unknown location. Despite his reservations, the offer of doubled pay is enough for him to let the young Eddie Ly (Phi Vu), the intense Aden Salhi (Dali Benssalah), and the charming Tay Du’o’ng (Dustin Nguyen) into his beat-down car and onto his bead-covered seats. It doesn’t take long for Long to realize something is amiss, but by then, he’s been kidnapped by the three escaped convicts.

This is no adventure, however, and the few moments of action are brutal but quick. These are fights between men who aren’t looking to kill one another, only to convince. You see, Aden does want to kill Long. He knows too much, but Tay has begun to grow fond of the old man. The consequences of grabbing sH๏τgun, I suppose. Even with the threat of death hanging over Long, Lee keeps a steady foot on the gas. There’s not much yelling and when a gun is pulled, it’s apologized for by the wielder, as if they’re embarrᴀssed to even have it.

It’s the waiting that’s agonizing. Time slows down after Long is captured, and he spends his endless day driving his captors, waiting in ugly motel rooms, dreaming of some old life that we get snippets of as the film goes on. Nghia is devastating in his role, his large glᴀsses giving his eyes the roundness and size of a Pixar character, and the way his chin quivers as he’s pushed around from car to room to car again made my heart ache.

This internal sadness, brought on by much more than the circumstances he finds himself in, we slowly find out, occasionally gives way to incredible moments of courage and kindness from Long, making them all the more powerful. He can’t be strong often, but when he rolls down a window for Tay, who lights up a cigarette in his backseat, it’s not just funny, it’s triumphant.

Long & Tay’s Relationship Is A Moving Look At Male Relationships

Language Presents A Tricky Barrier For Everyone In The Accidental Getaway Driver

Tay and Long have a connection that grows organically throughout the film. Though they say they are only talking to pᴀss the time on the never-ending road, both reveal more about themselves than they perhaps intended. Each man has made mistakes that have cost him his family connections, but they both don’t realize what they’ve lost until they see it in the other.

Long only speaks Vietnamese, Tay English and Vietnamese, Eddie English and bad Vietnamese, and Aden only English. Communication takes three times as long as it should and, as the leader, Aden has to tell Tay to translate to Long, with Tay often softening Aden’s anxious, demanding words. When Aden talks to Long directly, Lee pulls a cool trick by muffling the sound of what should be key bits of information, making us as lost as Long.

Characters talk to pᴀss the time, they share bits and pieces about themselves, sometimes off-screen, so we learn a fact after the characters. Aden apologetically promises to kill Long knowing the older man can’t understand him, but Long knows the score. Language can offer knowledge, but it can also impart things we’d rather not hear.

In a wonderful moment during a tedious wait in a motel room, Eddy, Long, and Tay work together to see if they can flick a sunflower seed into a cup, one after another. Despite their language barriers, the trio work together, holding their breath after a teammate sinks a sH๏τ. I won’t spoil the result, but The Accidental Getaway Driver‘s ability to show connection across generations and languages has rarely been so expertly staged.