Genre: Action
Directed: Edgar Wright
Stars: Ansel Elgort, Lily James, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Eiza Gonzalez, Jon Bernthal, CJ Jones, Flea, Hal Whiteside, Lanny Joon, Viviana Chavez, Hudson Meek, Sky Ferreira
Production: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Director Edgar Wright's newest and most outwardly conventional film Baby Driver is nothing short of a new definition in cool. Aided by an eclectic soundtrack, a stylish and engrossing caper story and Wright's meticulously crafted look and feel, the film soars like rarely a movie of this stripe has soared before. At its height Baby Driver feels like the mordant composure of a Jean-Pierre Melville's crime thriller is being spun around on a Looney Tune Acme thingamajig. It sounds like it shouldn't work but after seeing what is most definitely the best crime comedy in years, having this particular mix of awesome is the equivalent of accidentally getting chocolate in your peanut butter.
It's a miracle of modern science! |
As with all movies of this kind, things don't go exactly according to plan. A plot point that looms larger as Baby starts dating a peppy waitress named Debora (James) who shares his love of music. It's a love of necessity as the music is used to drown out his tinnitus, as well as having the duel purpose of being getaway driving focus fuel and a framing device for the audience.
And what remarkably obsessive frames we end up going through. To point out that Baby Driver has a handful of incredible car chases verges on the obvious. Yet what the trailer might not tell you about are the various visual and audio cues that create an echo chamber of gags, setups, callbacks, pacing devices and tension builders. They're meant to please the ears and tickle the brain and boy do they ever. In one moment of frazzled suspense, the sound mixing erupts in a cacophony of gunfire, sneaker squeaks, screaming on-lookers and the non-diegetic guitar riffs of "Hocus Pocus" blaring on Baby's iPod. In other scenes the body language of supporting cast members sync up perfectly with whatever Baby is listening to, hinting to a heightened reality that only Baby experiences in the recesses of his headphones. Baby Driver is not strictly speaking a musical, but it might as well be.
In fairness, Baby Driver has 100% less Minis |
No - this movie wants to be appreciated. It wants to be oogled at and admired and further distills its energy with a supporting cast that either meets or exceed it. Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Lanny Joon and Flea all do wonders playing the various psychotics that encircle Baby like a murder of crows. Their characterizations are buoyant as a whole with Hamm and Gonzalez standing out as a criminal couple whose psychosis is just this side of Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
...also 100% fedora. |
Take me! |
Yet when everything is in motion, Baby Driver can't help but be an incredible romp. Nearly everything to this movie fires on all cylinders. And in the drivers seat is arguably one of the most fertile and creative movie minds of the 21st century. Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), Scott Pilgrim (2010), World's End (2013) and now this? Seriously what can't Edgar Wright do?
Oh, right! |
Final Grade: B+
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