THREE MUSKETEERS: Directors of ‘Arriving in Five Minutes Period’ Trevor Lyon (right) and Colby Smith (left) get a hug from the subject of their documentary, Bedminster-area food delivery driver Justice Kibbe. (Photo by Rick Mellerup)
“Arriving In Five Minutes Period,” a 95-minute documentary directed by Trevor Lyon and Colby Smith, is a simple film in many ways.
Lyon and Smith filmed Justice Kibbe, a North Jersey DoorDash driver, as he picked up and delivered food over the course of a week ending on Labor Day weekend 2022. They also did all the editing, all the captioning, etc. – in other words they did everything, a two-man production team working on a low-budget indie film.
The scenes are simplicity itself. A camera mounted on Kibbe’s front window caught about 50% of the action, if you could call it action. It recorded Kibbe accepting DoorDash orders from his driver’s seat and making comments such as “Colin L., one item. French onion soup. One French onion soup for Colin. A seven dollar order from Panera. This guy really wanted a French onion soup.”
Many of the remaining 50% of the scenes show Kibbe picking up his food deliveries at various restaurants, most of them fast food chains, and then finding the customer’s home, walking up to the door, and leaving the deliveries outside of it. The customers knew when to expect him because Kibbe had messaged them through the DoorDash app with his voice becoming a written message saying “Arriving in five minutes, period. I will leave the order by the door, period. Have a great night, exclamation point!”
“I want to remind the customer of the human element, that there’s a human being on the other side of it,” said Kibbe.
Readers might be saying, “Really, that’s it, that’s a documentary?”
It starts slowly, with Kibbe making deliveries in the towns surrounding his own home in Bedminster. Viewers might quickly think “Arriving In Five Minutes Period” is a pretty lame documentary and that Kibbe is an overweight, not-exactly-a-fashion-plate, lonely schlub. After all, one of the first scenes in the film is Kibbe cleaning up his windshield and dashboard with Windex, saying he’d been sneezing a lot lately, although “not on the food.” And let’s face it, it is likely many people consider the 50 million or so gig economy workers in the U.S. losers – “Why can’t they find a real job?”
The action becomes more interesting when Kibbe, Lyon and Smith take a road trip to Cincinnati, with Kibbe making DoorDash deliveries along the way.
Why Cincinnati? Turns out Kibbe had been enthralled with the story of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden’s major attraction, Fiona the Nile hippo, the first of her kind born at the zoo in 75 years and born prematurely, requiring special care.
Fiona’s story became national news and Kibbe was intrigued, finding the baby hippo to be cute as hell. He’d wanted to see her personally but hadn’t found his way to Cincinnati. However, on Aug. 3, 2022 Fiona became a big sister when her brother Fritz was born. Kibbe knew he had to get to Cincinnati as soon as possible to see a baby hippo.
During the long trip through Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, Kibbe had much more time to tell his life story and an interesting one it was. He’d enrolled in six colleges over the years, having trouble completing a semester at each one. One major reason – partying.
Kibbe turned out to be an interesting subject for a documentary. He showed a sense of humor, was friendly, quite intelligent (he always wore a mask on the job in New Jersey but quickly figured out that wouldn’t go over well in red states such as West Virginia and Ohio) and a good DoorDash worker, always accepting orders of any sort, which is unusual. And he was proud of his work.
“So right now I have a 4.98 out of five, because I have 99 five-star ratings out of the last 100 and one three-star rating. And the three-star rating, I’ll never know what I did to deserve a three-star rating, and it can kind of drive you crazy if you take it really seriously. Which you shouldn’t, but you should, because it’s your job.”
Kibbe was kind of angry that so many customers didn’t tip but said he couldn’t hold it against them because he didn’t know their circ*mstances. His job isn’t always easy. He had to spend 45 minutes tracking down some high school kids who had made an order because they kept visiting friends’ houses and changing the address for the delivery. Of course they didn’t tip. But he said they at least apologized for making his job so tough and he said that was something.
The highlight of the film was when Kibbe saw Fiona swimming in the zoo’s pool. He thought he might be disappointed because she didn’t come out for the longest time. But when she did, the grin on Kibbe’s face was so wide the camera could barely contain it. Alas, he didn’t get to see Fritz, who was still too young to appear in public.
Over the course of the film Kibbe becomes more and more endearing. The pretty large crowd at Manahawkin’s Regal Cinemas loved the film and the man himself when he appeared in a Q&A after the screening along with Lyon and Smith. He’s the type of guy you’d like to have a beer with.
That isn’t going to happen. Kibbe has been sober for several years now. Although he still occasionally dips his toes in DoorDash he has a steady job working for his church. He still doesn’t have a solid idea of what he wants to do in the future, but he’s getting by and appeared happy.
“Arriving In Five Minutes Period” is a simple film for sure, but one with a lot of heart. It would likely make most viewers respect gig workers, waitstaff and hotel maids a little more. After all, they’re human beings. Maybe they’d even tip them.
—Rick Mellerup
