‘Wheelman’: A Netflix Original Movie
New to Netflix is the action movie Wheelman by writer/director Jeremy Rush (John Doe and the Anti and No Road to Follow). This new action/crime film is a short ride at just one hour and 22 minutes, but the catch that makes it feel longer than it is, despite the abundance of action, is that the action remains almost entirely within a car.
Frank Grillo (Warrior and The Grey) stars as the film’s unnamed title character—the wheelman of the film. He is a reluctant criminal who is less than one year out of prison, but works as the getaway driver for bank robbers to try to earn money to repay old debts and take care of his teenage daughter, Kate (Caitlin Carmichael of 300: Rise of an Empire and Martyrs).
On the night that the action in the film takes place, the wheelman picks up two bank robbers with whom he has never before worked. He drives them to the target and, as they are inside staging a robbery, he receives an unnerving call from an unknown number warning him to speed away without the two men after they put the bags of money in the car or else they will kill him.
After making what becomes the life-changing decision to speed away, the wheelman continues to receive more mysterious calls, some from the original unknown caller and strangely even more from an additional unknown caller.
Both of the callers direct the wheelman with contradictory instructions on what to do, as well as make numerous threats against him, his ex-wife, and his daughter if he does not comply with their demands. In an attempt to make sense of the growing chaos and threats, the wheelman tracks down his initial contractor, Clay (Garret Dillahunt of 12 Years a Slave and No Country for Old Men) before eventually taking matters into his own hands.
In addition (for those who have already binge-watched the entire second season of Stranger Things and are looking for some additional original programming):
Season One of a new Netflix original series titled Alias Grace began streaming on Nov. 3. It is based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, which may interest fans of The Handmaid’s Tale. Alias Grace is based on the story of an Irish immigrant named Grace Marks who was imprisoned in 1843 for the murder of her boss, an act of which she has no memory.
A new original film is set to begin streaming on Netflix on Friday, Nov. 17 titled Mudbound from filmmaker Dee Rees (Bessie and Pariah). Mudbound is an adaptation of Hillary Jordan’s novel about the relationship between two Mississippi families, one of which is comprised of white landowners and the other of black sharecroppers newly returned from serving in World War II. The newly returned veterans’ struggles with racism and adjusting to life after the war are highlighted.
Godless is a seven-part series that will begin streaming on Netflix on Wednesday, Nov. 22 from producer Steven Soderbergh (Magic Mike XXL and TV’s Red Oaks). Godless is a western centering on a group of women in a frontier town in New Mexico where all the men have died in mysterious mining accident.
Several well-known recent films are new to Amazon Prime this month. Landline (starring Jenny Slate as a Manhattan teenager who discovers her father is carrying on an affair) begins streaming on Nov. 17. The Big Sick (Kumail Nanjiani’s mostly true story of how he met and fell in love with his real-life wife while she was in the throes of a health scare) begins streaming on Friday, Nov. 24. Fences (the award winning film from 2016 starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis) also begins streaming on Nov. 24.
Two new Hulu original TV series are set to begin streaming this month, as well. Futureman is a time-travel comedy that begins streaming Tuesday, Nov. 14 and Runaways is a Marvel comic book adaptation that begins streaming Tuesday, Nov. 21.