ONE WAY

Stars: Colson Baker, Storm Reid, Drea de Matteo, Travis Fimmel, Rhys Coiro, Meagan Holder,  Luis Da Silva Jr., Thomas Francis Murphy, K.D. O'Hair and Kevin Bacon.
Writer: Ben Conway
Director: Andrew Baird

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

The school bus drivers of my youth would have wrapped up Andrew Baird’s backseat potboiler One Way in about five minutes, so demanding were they of good behaviour. There was no tolerance for bags of coke, cash, handguns or bleeding-out petty crims on the Carlingford-Epping Hillsbus #549. Fortunately, for audiences who appreciate a well-structured and atmospheric crime thriller, the Sunways coachline team let a lot unravel on this late night run.

Fleeing a bold and bloody drug/cash heist is mid-level street hood Freddy, played by Colson Baker. Those of a certain age know the star as white rapper/red-carpet staple Machine Gun Kelly, aka MGK, but here he is donning his ‘serious actor’ persona. And he’s very good, conveying first the pain of a gut-shot wound and then existential angst as he realises he needs to get things in order with his ex, ER nurse Christine (Meghan Holder) and estranged daughter (Colson’s real-life tyke, Casie Baker) before the inevitable happens (not really a spoiler, as it’s right there in the title).

Trying to navigate his way out of trouble and into Christine’s care from a bus seat, Freddy befriends teen runaway Rachel (a terrific Storm Reid) while coping with the occasional pain-related hallucination. Also on board is Travis Fimmel’s social worker Phil (“You don’t look like a social worker,” notes Freddy, presciently) and, as the aforementioned bus driver who only has eyes for the road ahead, Thomas Francis Murphy. As the Puerto Rican crime boss hunting down our anti-hero, Drea de Matteo deliver ice-cold villainy well; as Freddy’s scumbag father, whose rare blood type may be all that can save his desperate son, Kevin Bacon brings that capital-H ‘Hollywood’ presence to some nasty moments.

Freddy carries two mobiles (including a ‘burner’, which I’ve learned is a thing today), which means One Way is a film in which a lot of time is spent watching actors reacting to phone screens and not other actors; it is usually something I cringe at, but Baird, DOP Tobia Sempi and editor John Walters keep the interactions lively. It is also likely the project was bound by pandemic protocols, adding immeasurably to the credit due the production unit for pulling off such a convincing confined-space dramatic conceit.

The Irish director’s first mainland U.S.A. shoot is steeped in the rain-soaked, neon-bathed lore of ‘70’s American crime-noir thrillers; it is not too hard to envision a version of One Way with Walter Hill calling the shots and a cast boasting the likes of Bruce Dern and Warren Oates. Baird leans into some modern flourishes that Hill and his hard-edged contemporaries would have baulked at (lens flare, slow-motion, strong female characters), but it is nevertheless a sturdy work and confirms the filmmaker is a talent to watch.