Wheelman

For this week, I decided to watch Wheelman, directed by Jeremy Rush and starring Frank Grillo (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Purge Anarchy) as a getaway driver who has one bad night where everything seems to go wrong. The film also features bit roles from established actors Shea Whigham (Silver Linings Playbook) and Garret Dillahunt (Deadwood).

To start off this review, I cannot skip over the brilliant style of the film. Much like the Tom Hardy vehicle (pun intended) Locke, Wheelman takes place almost entirely following Frank Grillo's character driving around. This is both brilliant and risky. On the positive end, when it is pulled off right, it seems unique, fresh, and can also help intensify the suspense. On the other hand, this style can also lead to an incredibly boring film. Thankfully the former is true, not the latter. I think the major reason the film is as enthralling as it is is due to the excellent editing, writing, and directing. This combination led to a well paced film that had me on the edge of my seat several times throughout. Additionally, the film feels very much like a gritty 1970s-80s crime film in the veins of Taxi Driver, Mean Streets, and Death Wish. As a sucker for this style, I very much enjoyed it and really wish more films had this kind of style to it. 

I also really need to give some credit to Frank Grillo, who was really good in the lead role. Grillo is in nearly 100% of every shot in the film, so it was vital to get an actor who could pull off such a hard role. While Grillo is a solid supporting actor, I never really saw him as lead material. That changed after seeing this. Grillo, in my opinion, has the potential to be the next big action film star with his strong screen presence and believability as a hard nosed, rouged bad ass. I honestly think he probably should would have been great as the Punisher for the Netflix Marvel Universe (apologies to Jon Bernthal). While no other actor has more than a few on screen scenes, whenever they do pop up they seem to do a pretty good job, in particular Whigham who is absolutely chewing the scenery as a lunatic bank robber and  Caitlin Carmichael as Grillo's estranged daughter. 

As an action film, this is definitely one of the best I've seen this decade (excluding films like Star Wars and comic book adaptations). It's far too common nowadays to see films focus way too much on the action, leaving very little for other necessary aspects (think the Taken sequels). This is an action film without being "action-packed," which I think is great. The film also did a great job making me feel that Grillo and his family were vulnerable and very human, something most action films fail to do. I actually believed that these characters could die at an given notice. Another great aspect about the action: it was very realistic. When guns are shot, they feel powerful like they should. When someone gets shot, they are very much in pain and die. This isn't the kind of film to sugarcoat gun violence and make it seem like the protagonist can just soak up bullets while acting as if he were getting hit with pebbles instead of bullets. I personally am not a fan of action films in the least bit unless they are done right. This one does it right.

I want to finish this review by looking at the dialogue of the film, which is also very good. Mr. Rush also penned the film, making this both his directorial debut as well as his writing debut, something that should not be lightly glanced over. Being both an action and crime film, the dialogue could have gone in one of two bad ways: bad action dialogue that includes way too many puns and one liners or crime dialogue that is super pretentious while trying to replicate Goodfellas. This is something that these type of films do all of the time (Martin Scorsese who directed Goodfellas even did it himself with Casino). Thankfully, this film doesn't verge into either of these two territories. Instead, the dialogue here goes for a more realistic strategy. Characters curse when they would in real life, they're silent when the would be, and the shout, scream, and cry where they would. I don't understand why more films don't just go for this style as it to me makes the film far more immersive. Unless you're Quentin Tarantino or David O. Russell, the Goodfellas style usually doesn't work and the action style only works if the film has no intentions of being taken seriously. 

By no means is Wheelman going to be winning any Oscars come February next year nor it is going to become some kind of classic. That said, the film is very solid and, in my opinion, didn't seem like it much cared for a statue or status. To me, this film only wanted to be a fun, gritty thrill ride which I think it pulled off perfectly and was a very good start to Mr. Rush's young and hopefully bright career. So far, this is my second favorite Netflix original film that I have seen and would definitely give it a strong suggestion to someone wanting to have a movie night.