Arts |

Movie based on CT writer’s true-crime article receives high praise as it premieres nationwide

A magazine article by Connecticut resident Paul Kix about the bizarre real-life aftermath of a California prison escape has been turned into a much-praised independent film released last week after winning a director’s prize at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in 2023.

“The Accidental Getaway Driver,” made in 2023 and just now getting a national release, is based on a 2017 article of the same title that Kix wrote for GQ magazine. It’s the story, he said, of “three guys who escaped from an Orange County jail” in California and forced an elderly Vietnamese cab driver to assist in their getaway “only to end up a mile from the same jail they escaped from.”

While it sounds like an action yarn, and guns certainly do get waved about, Kix said this is actually “a tender story. It becomes a father/son story. It’s a story that curves. It starts in one place, then takes you somewhere else.”

“The Accidental Getaway Driver” is directed by Sing J. Lee, whose other film work ranges from the shorts “Flux” and “First the Bird Fell,” to a Donal Glover Adidas commercial to music videos for Alicia Keys, Halsey and others. He brings a shimmering artistic style to the film, which takes place mostly at night. Even the violence has a sense of poetry to it, as with a bloody fistfight that takes place in the water, witnessed by the quivering cab driver on the beach.

“He’s also someone who understood the immigrant experience,” Kix said.

Last week, “The Accidental Getaway Driver” had its debut in New York and Los Angeles, where some of the screenings sold out. It received positive reviews from The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and other publications. The full national rollout for the film began on Friday.

Kix moved to Farmington 12 years ago, originally to work for the now-defunct ESPN The Magazine in Bristol.

Besides a “based on an article by” credit, Kix is listed as an executive producer on the film. “I had insight into the screenplay,” he said. “I saw two rough cuts before it went to Sundance.”

“The Accidental Getaway Driver” won Lee the directing award in the “U.S. Dramatic” category at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. The filmmakers were hopeful of getting a distribution deal right away based on the enthusiastic Sundance reaction, but it took two years for the film to get to theaters.

When the film hit the festival circuit, it marked a career turning point for Kix. “In 2020, when I was laid off from ESPN, I decided to stay in Connecticut with my family and write the books I always wanted to write,” he said.

His first book, “The Saboteur: The Aristocrat Who Became France’s Most Daring Anti-Nazi Commando,” was published in 2018 and optioned by a major movie studio, but that deal fell apart.

“Beginnings are really hard,” Kix said of becoming a full-time freelance writer. “When Sundance happened, I was really struggling.” Suddenly he was part of an award-winning film project with a new sense of purpose. Following the abortive experience with “The Saboteur,” Kix told himself “If this happens again, I’m going to demand more input.”

The main characters in the real-life story were Vietnamese, and Kix and the filmmakers insisted on Vietnamese actors. One of the stars of “The Accidental Getaway Driver” is Dustin Nguyen, who co-starred in the TV series “21 Jump Street” in the late 1980s. The title role of the getaway driver is played by Hiep Tran Nghia.

The average independent film production shoots for six weeks to months, Kix said. “We tried to do it in three weeks. Since the story mostly takes place at night, we were working every day from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. I remember one night, being there at 2 or 3 a.m. with everyone all working so hard together to get this one important shot., I had this feeling esprit de corps that reminded me so much of long nights at ESPN The Magazine: ‘Hey, we’re all doing something really good here.’”

Kix recently took part in Q&A sessions after several screenings of “The Accidental Getaway Driver” during its opening weekend at the AMC Plainville 20, currently the only location in Connecticut to see the film. The film is playing there through Wednesday.

Kix continues to write books — he is working on one about real-life special forces officers who found themselves preventing a mass slaughter in post-withdrawal Afghanistan — but he is also teaching, consulting and working on new film projects.

“Even when I was still at ESPN, I found that I loved writing screenplays,” he said.

“The Accidental Getaway Driver” is playing on Tuesday at 2:05, 4:45, 7:20 and 10 p.m. and on Wednesday at 2:05, 4:45, 7:20 and 10 p.m. at AMC Plainville 20 in the Connecticut Commons complex at 220 New Britain Ave., Plainville. www.amctheatres.com.