In 2016, three men escaped from an Orange County jail, and then, out of options, called a cab. The driver who showed up was an elderly Vietnamese man, Long Mã, a divorced war veteran, whom they kidnapped and held hostage during a weeklong ordeal, the trio and their captive evading capture by hiding out in Southern California motel rooms.

Mã’s experience was elaborated in a 2017 GQ article by Paul Kix, “The Accidental Get Away Driver,” which described the unique bond he formed with Bac Duong, one of his kidnappers, a Vietnamese national, and the terror he experienced at the hands of Hossein Nayeri, the ringleader. This wild story has now been brought to the screen by co-writer/director Sing J. Lee, in a lyrical and meditative adaptation that focuses on mood and feeling, rather than action-oriented suspense.

There’s an excellent unknowingness to the first moments of “The Accidental Getaway Driver.” The concrete sprawl and traffic lights indicate we’re in Orange County, and the Vietnamese spoken everywhere lets us know we’re in the OC enclave known as Little Saigon. Long Mã, played with a heart-piercing soulfulness by Hiep Tran Nghia, answers the call for a ride, but the elderly man doesn’t feel like working so late and tries to decline. Tây (Dustin Nguyen) convinces him it’s a short trip and they’ll pay double, so he picks up the three men, who then request more and more stops. When he protests, Tây pulls a gun on him. The journey is only just beginning.

Lee’s approach to the material is to focus on performance and tone, and specifically the relationship between Tây (the character based on Bac Duong) and Long, which emerges as the two Vietnamese men start to share their life stories with each other during the long stretches of downtime while they’re hiding out and trying to figure out the next move. Tây protects his elder from the skittish, young Eddie (Phi Vu) and the psychopathic Aden (Dali Benssalah), who brags to the older man about his crimes, which includes torturing and mutilating a man in the desert.

Cinematographer Michael Fernandez brings a texture and tactility to this crime story, capturing the inadvertent beauty of this gritty, unremarkable setting: faces bathed in the glow of crimson brake lights and neon convenience store signs; realistically rumpled motel rooms and cigarette smoke swirling in the backseat of an old Corolla.

Rather than hone in on the details of these three escaped prisoners’ crimes, Lee and co-writer Christopher Chen focus on Long’s subjective experience in his time with them. All we know about them is what he does: we glean information about their pasts in warm conversations with Tây, or via a threatening monologue from Aden. Eddie remains a bit of a cipher until the group sees his mother and sister on the news and he breaks down.

Often, we’re taken into dreamlike memories of Long’s: snippets of his childhood in Vietnam, watery, muddled remembrances of his lost marriage and family, a few abstract, surreal images that gesture to his past but don’t reveal much. The intent is to remain in his inner world as he goes through this extreme event, but while it is beautiful and poetic, it is also somewhat abstruse and feels in conflict with the momentum of the larger story.

“The Accidental Getaway Driver” seeks not to elucidate the facts of this true crime tale, but rather to imagine Long’s state of mind during it, which is emotionally evocative but hinders the viewing experience as the film grinds to a halt for meandering asides. The performances, especially from Nguyen, Benssalah and Nghia, are moving, but it does feel like the film loses steam under its own conceit, despite the wealth and narrative richness of the material at hand.

‘The Accidental Getaway Driver’

2.5 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for language)

Running time: 1:42

How to watch: In select theaters on Friday, Feb. 28 and nationwide on March 7

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A measles outbreak in West Texas and New Mexico has killed a child and sickened more than 130 people, and public health experts fear it’s only the beginning. It’s an entirely avoidable health emergency fueled by weaknesses in our vaccine forcefield.

It’s also not hard to imagine this type of emergency becoming much worse, much faster if Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, further undermines the safety of and access to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

Troubling signs are already emerging that Kennedy, notorious for his vaccine misinformation, might influence the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s messaging and vaccine recommendations.

Measles outbreaks rise to nearly 100 cases between Texas and New Mexico. Here’s what you should know

Members of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again inner circle have dismissed the measles threat. Health care entrepreneur Calley Means, who is helping to shape and implement the MAHA agenda, complained on CNN last week about the media’s focus on the Texas outbreak. “Day after day, it’s breathless — it’s breathless coverage of five measles cases,” he said, suggesting chronic disease is meanwhile being ignored.

There’s a reason for that “breathless” coverage. Measles is both scarily contagious and easily preventable.

“It’s more contagious than COVID, more contagious than the flu, more contagious than Ebola,” says Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

After someone with measles coughs or sneezes — or even breathes — tiny droplets of the virus hang in the air like ghosts for up to two hours, waiting to infect anyone who wanders by.

Moreover, people with measles — most often children — typically get very sick with a fever, cough and sore throat before the telltale rash sets in. So far, 18 of the 124 Texans infected have been hospitalized, according to state health officials. The majority of the cases are unvaccinated children, who are susceptible to pneumonia and, more rarely, brain swelling that can cause permanent damage. Two or three out of every 1,000 children with measles will die. One of the hospitalized Texas patients, an unvaccinated child, died Tuesday night.

That’s why, with even a few cases, public health officials race to retrace patients’ steps and who they might have encountered. The goal is to warn vulnerable people so they can take steps to minimize their risk of serious infection and quarantine to prevent further spread. Most at risk are those too young or too immunocompromised to be protected by the MMR vaccine.

Each cluster becomes more dangerous as vaccination rates in the U.S. soften. Measles was officially eradicated in the U.S. in 2000, but maintaining that status means ensuring that roughly 93-95% of the population is vaccinated.

Pioneer Press headline, March 7, 1967. (Pioneer Press)

Although Texas’ childhood vaccination rate is just over 94%, its outbreak started in Gaines County, where some 18% of kindergarteners have vaccine exemptions. That creates a pocket of vulnerability that can allow the disease to rip through a community and spread into neighboring areas.

The numbers and size of those pockets are growing around the country. Some are in counties where many people have religious exemptions, while others are in places that have fallen victim to anti-vaccine rhetoric, like that coming from Kennedy.

“Even at a low level, we could get some endemic spread,” former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on “Face the Nation,” pointing to low levels of MMR vaccination in several states, including Idaho, Alaska, Wisconsin and Minnesota. “The U.S. could be at risk of losing its measles elimination status, which would have more profound implications on things like travel advisories that could be initiated from other countries.”

The worry is that these numbers — and the opportunity for measles and other infectious diseases to spread — could get much worse. Kennedy has spent years railing against the safety of the MMR vaccine (and falsely connecting it to autism) and now has the power to act on his beliefs.

Despite Kennedy’s lukewarm assurances during his Senate confirmation hearings that he would not take away Americans’ vaccines, early signs raise concerns. Sweeping job cuts at HHS this month targeted CDC employees, including those in a critical public health training program. The CDC also appears to have pulled an ad campaign to improve the country’s dismal flu vaccination rates, a move that came at the tail end of a brutal outbreak and rising pediatric flu deaths.

More worrisome was the indefinite postponement of a meeting of a CDC committee on vaccines, originally scheduled for this week. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends who, when, and how often people should get specific vaccinations, advice that directly affects access and insurance coverage.

While the MMR vaccination was not on ACIP’s agenda, punting the committee’s discussion has ominous undertones. Some are concerned the delay could be related to an executive order issued by Trump last week calling for the heads of government agencies “to identify and submit to the president additional unnecessary governmental entities and federal advisory committees that should be terminated on grounds that they are unnecessary.”

But even if ACIP doesn’t fall to the administration’s scrutiny, there is plenty of reason to fear that Kennedy will throw the committee into disarray. During his confirmation hearings, he made a passing reference to ACIP members he claimed had a conflict of interest. It’s an accusation that one could easily imagine being used to replace some members with appointees whose views more closely align with his own.

Any measles outbreak is serious, yet Kennedy’s influence amid weakened vaccine acceptance raises the stakes. Public health officials like to say that measles can spread like wildfire. I worry that the U.S. will soon have a lot more kindling.

Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News.

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Today is Friday, Feb. 28, the 59th day of 2025. There are 306 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Feb. 28, 1993, a gun battle erupted at a religious compound near Waco, Texas, when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents tried to arrest Branch Davidian leader David Koresh on weapons charges; four agents and six Davidians were killed as a 51-day standoff began.

Also on this date:

In 1844, a 12-inch gun aboard the USS Princeton exploded as the ship was sailing on the Potomac River, killing Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas W. Gilmer and several others; President John Tyler, who also was aboard the ship, was uninjured.

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Today in History: February 25, Muhammad Ali wins heavyweight title

In 1953, Francis H.C. Crick announced that he and fellow scientist James D. Watson had discovered the double-helix structure of DNA.

In 1975, 43 people were killed in London’s Underground when a train failed to stop at Moorgate station, smashing into the end of a tunnel.

In 1983, the final episode of the television series “M(asterisk)A(asterisk)S(asterisk)H” aired; nearly 106 million viewers saw the finale, which remains the most-watched episode of any U.S. television series to date.

In 1986, Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was assassinated while walking on a Stockholm street with his wife; his assailant was never captured and remains unidentified.

In 2013, Benedict XVI became the first pope in 600 years to resign, ending an eight-year pontificate. (Benedict was succeeded the following month by Pope Francis.)

In 2014, delivering a blunt warning to Moscow, President Barack Obama expressed deep concern over reported military activity inside Ukraine by Russia and warned “there will be costs” for any intervention.

Today’s birthdays:

Architect Frank Gehry is 96.
Rock singer Sam the Sham (aka Domingo Samudio) is 88.
Actor-director-choreographer Tommy Tune is 86.
Hall of Fame auto racer Mario Andretti is 85.
Actor Mercedes Ruehl is 77.
Actor-singer Bernadette Peters is 77.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman is 72.
Basketball Hall of Famer Adrian Dantley is 70.
Actor John Turturro is 68.
Actor Maxine Bahns is 55.
Actor Robert Sean Leonard is 56.
Musician Pat Monahan (Train) is 56.
Actor Tasha Smith is 54.
Hockey Hall of Famer Eric Lindros is 52.
Actor Ali Larter is 49.
Country musician Jason Aldean is 48.
NBA guard Luka Dončić is 26.

Which rug runner is best?

Runners are strips of carpet that have finished edges on all four sides. They are one of the best and easiest ways to protect your home’s flooring from scrapes, dirt and moisture. Rug runners brighten narrow spaces in your home and make them look bigger, too.

Rug runners have another practical purpose: a runner made with a sure-grip backing protects your family and guests from slip-and-fall injuries. If you are looking for a runner that never skids, take a look at House, Home And More Skid-Resistant Carpet Runner. Its soft loop-pile surface and neutral tan color complement a wide range of home decors.

What to know before you buy a rug runner

Where you will put it

Entrance areas: When you place a rug runner just inside your front door, you are showing visitors your sense of style. You are also being practical, because people’s shoes naturally collect dirt, dust and other debris from outside, and a runner protects the floor in your entryway.
Hallways: Long, narrow runners in hallways help narrow corridors seem wider, brighter and more inviting to the eye. Hallways typically get a lot of traffic, so durability is a primary consideration.
Staircases: If you have hardwood stairs, runners help prevent dangerous slips and falls, reduce the sound of feet tromping up and down and protect your beautiful hardwood, all while making a fashion statement.
Kitchens: In kitchens, runners repel the inevitable greases and liquids that come with cooking. Kitchens are good places for synthetic runners that shrug off stains and are easy to clean. Runners also provide a bit of springiness that makes standing easier on the cook.
Bedrooms: Bedrooms don’t get as much traffic as hallways, living areas and kitchens. Bedroom rug runners provide traction and warmth for wooden and tile floors. Runners placed on carpet keep the nap of your wall-to-wall carpet from getting trampled down in the same places over and over.

Material

High-traffic areas need durable runners that handle traffic and dirt. Wool resists both dirt and liquids, so it’s easy to clean. In kitchens, look for runners that repel the greases and liquids spilled by even the finest chefs. Check out runners that have enough padding to add comfort for cooks who are on their feet for hours. All runners help reduce sound by cushioning footsteps and absorbing sound waves.

Pile height

For that luxurious, cushiony feeling, deeper piles are better. But deep piles also trap more dirt and debris and are harder to clean, so choose high piles for low-traffic areas and low piles for areas that get lots of foot traffic.

Step up

For added safety that looks good, too, look for runners that taper at the edges so they don’t stick up and trip you.

Bounce back

Runners should rebound immediately from impressions made by people’s feet and shoes. Check the bounce-back factor before choosing a runner.

How much you can expect to spend on a rug runner

The cost of a runner depends on its size and materials. Smaller runners made of synthetic fibers can be found for as little as $20 while plush rug runners made of high-quality fabrics cost almost as much as fine carpets.

Rug runner FAQ

Do all rug runners have the same backing materials?

A. No. Rugs used on slippery surfaces such as wood and tile need to have sturdy backing made to hug the floor and grip it tightly. When you put a runner on top of a carpet, it has much less chance of skidding, but may bunch up, so make sure you match your runner’s backing material and design to the surface where you put it.

Can I install a staircase runner by myself?

A. Yes, if you know exactly how to attach it to your staircase. Stairs are the site of slips and falls and you want to know that without a doubt, your runner will never cause an injury. When in doubt, call a pro.

What’s the best rug runner to buy?

Top rug runner

House, Home And More Skid-Resistant Carpet Runner

What you need to know: Walk safely and comfortably on this soft loop-pile beige runner that complements a wide range of home decor.

What you’ll love: The neutral color and solid design of this 27-inch-wide, 6-foot-long runner provide protection for your floors while not drawing attention from your furnishings. This runner is finished and bound around all four edges and at the corners to provide a finished look and prevent fraying. The rubber backing resists skidding and prevents bunching while vacuuming.

What you should consider: The quarter-inch pile is functional, not luxurious.

Top rug runner for the money

Well Woven Barclay Sarouk Red Traditional Runner

What you need to know: This 2-foot-wide, 7-foot-long red runner is a great addition to any hallway or entrance.

What you’ll love: It also comes in light blue, green, black and ivory. Made of stain- and fade-resistant polypropylene that is very durable and easy to clean, it has a jute backing safe for wood floors and is serged on all sides for added durability.

What you should consider: This inexpensive artificial runner needs to be periodically replaced if used in a high-traffic area.

Worth checking out

Kapaqua Custom Size Solid Color Rubber Backed Non-Slip Stair Runner

What you need to know: This 22-inch-wide stair runner comes in any length you want, all the way up to 50 feet.

What you’ll love: Get the length you want in either a standard 22-inch or 31-inch width for larger staircases, and avoid the gaps and overlaps of trying to use a rug runner that is too long or too short. Choose from seven colors with this solid design that goes with any decor.

What you should consider: You can vacuum it regularly but will have to hand wash only.

Prices listed reflect time and date of publication and are subject to change.

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