By Robert Scucci
| Published
When it comes to movies, there are two things I love more than anything else: thrillers and short runtimes. While scrolling through Netflix for a quick late-night watch, I stumbled upon 2017’s Wheelman, which checks off both of those boxes. Some movies just don’t have a lot of story to them, but instead give you a quick glimpse into a day in the life of their characters.
In Wheelman’s case, it’s about a getaway driver who finds himself in an increasingly sticky situation after the bank robbery he helps facilitate, almost as if he’s being set up as the fall guy or diversion for a much larger crime about to unfold. This doesn’t need to be a long, involved story, so it isn’t. The entire movie takes place almost entirely inside a car, with our protagonist trying to figure out in real time exactly what’s going on through frantic phone calls, most of which go straight to voicemail.
There’s no worldbuilding or deep lore in Wheelman. It’s just a guy in a car who knows he’s in trouble, and, even worse, knows he doesn’t have a lot of options, or time, to get out of it. Sometimes, that’s all a movie needs to be, and whenever that’s the case, I’m always here for it.
The Entire Plot In 4 Sentences
Frank Grillo is a getaway driver for hire known only as Wheelman, and he’s instructed by his handler to ditch the bank robbers he’s supposed to help escape after they load the money into his trunk. Thinking that Clay (Garret Dillahunt), the partner who arranged the robbery, has something to do with this setup, Wheelman tries to reach him by cellphone but can’t get a hold of him, all while receiving menacing texts from an unknown sender. Wheelman worries about the safety of his 13-year-old daughter, Katie (Caitlin Carmichael), and, to a lesser degree, his ex-wife Jessica (Wendy Moniz), because they’re mentioned by name and he has no idea who he’s dealing with. As the night progresses, Wheelman learns that Clay is tangled up with competing crime families, putting him in the kind of situation that doesn’t come with a clear-cut exit strategy.
Like I said, Wheelman is a relentlessly tight thriller, mostly involving a guy on the phone trying to figure out his next move. In this case, there’s gunplay, dangerous people, and no obvious solution to our protagonist’s problems. As the film barrels into its second and third acts, the stakes continually rise because we learn more about who’s involved, what they want from Wheelman, and exactly how his family factors into all of it if he doesn’t do everything they say.
The film’s tagline is simply, “Drive Fast. Think Faster,” and there’s really no better way to sum it up. As an avid advocate for shorter runtimes and smaller budgets, I’m here to dispel a very important myth: short runtimes are not for short attention spans. Wheelman is one of those “blink and you miss it” films where every single second counts. Every turn signal, cryptic message, voice in the background of a phone call, and all 286 F-bombs carry weight and continually add to the tension. For $5 million, you really can’t beat a movie like this because it’s an exercise in constant escalation, but it still paces itself in a way that keeps everything grounded in reality.
The Perfect “Guy In A Car” Double Feature
While Wheelman earns its keep as a neo-noir action thriller, it shares a similar setup with 2013’s Locke starring Tom Hardy. In that film, which was also produced for around $2 million and clocks in at just 85 minutes, Hardy plays a construction foreman ditching work the night before the biggest concrete pour of his career because a woman he had an affair with is about to give birth. The entire movie is him driving, calling colleagues and city officials, and making increasingly desperate phone calls home as he breaks the news to his wife and sons.
As boring as Locke sounds on paper, it’s a captivating watch because it’s about a man trying to do the right thing after making a massive mistake. His life as he knows it is over, and he understands that, but he still keeps his composure while flying down the highway, determined to be present for the birth of his child for reasons that don’t initially make total sense, but become clearer as his late-night drive progresses.
Both films are cut from the same cloth, but operate on completely different frequencies. They’re also both streaming on Netflix, so my recommendation is to check them out the next time you want something a little different. Watch Locke for the emotional weight, then pivot over to Wheelman for the thrill of being on the run with a trunk full of money while your family waits on the sidelines, hoping you get to them before some unknown assailant does.
