Director: Edgar Wright.
Cast: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Eiza González, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal, CJ Jones.
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| "Third floor, cool stares, ladies' and men's sizes." |
I don't know this from personal experience (because I am super uncool) - I read it somewhere (see?).
But if you need proof of the amount of work that goes into being unfathomably hip (does that still mean cool?), then check out Baby Driver. It's the very definition of offhand awesomeness, and by virtue it has a lot of effort put into it, all totally worth it.
It's there in the largely CGI-free car stunts, the cut-to-the-rhythm editing, the jokey cadence of the script, and divine song choices. And while it's tempting to dismiss this as a flimsy B-movie love-in or a soundtrack in search of a movie or even some kind of flippant teen fantasy, that's at your own peril. This fast and furious piece of fun has heart to burn and an engine full of cool. Get in, put on a seatbelt, and enjoy one of the best cinematic rides of the year.
Ansel Elgort stars as the titular Baby, a wheelman for Doc (Spacey) who is a ruthless crime organiser - he ropes in the crims to pull off the heists he plans, with Baby always behind the wheel of the getaway car.
Baby's links to Doc go back to an unsettled debt, but once the debt is finished, Baby thinks he's out of the game. But there is never "one last job", and Baby's attempts to get free put himself and the new love of his life Debora (James) at risk.
The big talking point of Baby Driver is that soundtrack. The best since Guardians Of The Galaxy, it plays a similar role in the film - it's part-character, part-plot device, part-mood-maker, part-scene-setter, but bigger and better in each of those ways. From the opening car chase scored by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's Bellbottoms, it is an impeccably curated playlist featuring Beck, The Damned, Queen, Sam & Dave, Martha & The Vandellas, and heaps more. It is track after track of excellence, with the film exquisitely edited to suit every beat, guitar solo and breakdown.
Much of this music-matched editing is in the pedal-to-the-metal car chases and a handful of shoot-outs. It makes Baby Driver feel like a movie adaptation of video game Grand Theft Auto, which is not a bad thing. In making his ideal soundtrack-heavy car chase-driven B-movie, Edgar Wright has accidentally made the perfect example of what a GTA movie should be - lots of police pursuits with the music cranked, peppered with the occasional shoot-out and cool-as-hell cut scene.
But this is not a video game, and those "cut scenes" are where Baby Driver gets its heart and soul. The characters may seem thin but they're drawn with just enough detail to make them surprisingly well-rounded, despite being impossible people that couldn't exist outside of a crime caper. Ansel, in his Han Solo-referencing jacket, is quirk upon quirk with his ever-present headphones, insane driving skills, and laconic ways, but he's a loveable, cheerable hero. Collins is utterly believable as the love-at-first-sight ingenue, Hamm, González and Spacey get the cheesiest of lines and deliver them with ease, and with on-the-edge bankrobber Bats, Foxx has added another great character to an under-rated collection of interesting choices.
From its first two scenes - the Bellbottoms chase and a long, single-take introduction to Baby as he walks around Atlanta to the sounds of Bob & Earl's Harlem Shuffle - Baby Driver sets itself up in its own world. It's a world where crims have class, and crimes are planned with chalkboards by uber-crims, and everyone has code names, like a mix of Reservoir Dogs and Oceans 11. It's a world with meet cutes, love at first sight, and perfectly synchronised music/life interactions. If you're accepting of this world, if you buy into it, you're going to love Baby Driver. If you don't, well, I feel sorry for you, and maybe you should check your pulse before going out and finding a healthy dose of fun because maybe you have a deficiency. Or worse, some kind of fun intolerance.
The biggest criticism you could level at the film is that it's missing an extra level of depth that would have been nice. There are no grand themes or big ideas at play here, unlike Wright's other films (the Cornetto trilogy and Scott Pilgrim). If you scratch the surface below the car chases, quirky characters and killer soundtrack, and there's nothing much else there.
But sometimes that doesn't matter. Sometimes you just want to enjoy a really well-made film that is supremely fun, and that's what Baby Driver is. It sets out to be an immensely quotable car-chase movie with plenty of great tunes, and it is exactly that. It would be destined to become one of the great cult movies of all time, except that it's going to be too damned popular for that title.
And deservedly so. Bravo Edgar Wright.
The only downside is it makes a lot of people (like me) even more pissed off that we never got to see your Ant-Man movie.
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