Fantastic film Iranian government will hate

There is nothing accidental about the way Jafar Panahi makes movies.

The Iranian writer-director isn’t known for churning out sweet, innocent comedies that go down easily. He famously prods the Islamic republic’s oppressive authoritarian regime with his bold work. And, in the past, he has been jailed and banned from filmmaking and traveling abroad for his bravery.

The man’s moratorium was lifted in 2023, and he was able to leave Iran for the first time in 14 years. Even so, much of what the internationally celebrated 65-year-old does remains highly illegal at home and forces him to operate under a strict veil of secrecy.

That means the Iranian government probably isn’t as pleased as audiences are with Panahi’s knife-edged, stinging latest, “It Was Just an Accident.”

For officials in Tehran, it’s just a sharp kick in the teeth.

The political thriller, which is having its local premiere Thursday at the New York Film Festival, is about four outspoken former prisoners who seek to get revenge on the menacing guard who abused them when they were wrongfully locked up years earlier. 

There’s one small problem. They’re not sure if they’ve captured the right guy. 

Panahi is keenly aware of his limitations — both governmental and budgetary — and has crafted a taut, intimate and blood-pumping story around them. Talk about great art being born out of impossible circumstances.

The director didn’t have a permit to shoot “Accident,” and his actresses don’t wear hijabs. Therefore, much of the movie takes place off the beaten path and inside a white van.

That makes sense. His big-personality characters’ mission is a discreet and incredibly risky one. They could all easily get killed for it.

Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), the van-driving ringleader, recognizes the cruel guard at a mechanic’s garage after he hears the squeak of his prosthetic leg. He follows his car and kidnaps him. Vahid’s mostly sure he’s found the feared man, but he was blindfolded during the torture sessions.

Nervous, he wants to triple-check.

And from there, “Accident” becomes an unexpectedly funny, getting-the-band-back-together road trip, albeit with looming dread, as he gathers up past prisoners. 

The argumentative ensemble is the exact opposite of a Guy Ritchie group-of-guys-with-guns team. You’d expect to find these people in the quiet section of a library, not plotting the murder of an armed forces member. There’s photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari, absolutely fantastic), worker Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) and new bride Golrokh (Hadis Pakbaten). 

She keeps her wedding dress on, like on an episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Curb your tormentor.

They’re not sure if it’s him either.

Neither are we.

In short, the quartet has a man tied up in a coffin in the back of a vehicle, and they might kill him based on a hunch.

It’s a perfect cinematic elevator pitch that won me over before I’d seen a single frame of the movie. And all the way through, Panahi delivers on its fireworks promise with a plot that, while deceptively simple, is alive with moral complexity.

For instance, the could-be guard — who was nicknamed “the gimp” — has a pregnant wife and little daughter. He insists his captors are mistaken about his identity. The guy gets harder to off by the second. Yet aren’t they past the point of no return?

When at a will-they, won’t-they movie about a targeted killing, you know the laughs won’t stick around for long. And, indeed, the humor peters out as the main event draws nearer and the characters begin to see through their blind rage. Tension — not to mention our blood pressure — shoots up.

The superb ending is little more than a repeated sound and a steady image of a man.

And, although made on a shoestring and under constant threat of the law, it’s more horrifying and effective than most $200 million Hollywood blockbusters ever come close to.