Baby Driver
Directed by: Edgar Wright
Written by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez, Jamie Foxx, CJ Jones, Joe Bernthal, Flea, Lanny Joon, Brogan Hall, Allison King, Sky Ferreira, Lance Palmer, Hudson Meek, Hal Whiteside
Action/Crime/Music - 113 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 24 Jun 2017
Written by: Edgar Wright
Starring: Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez, Jamie Foxx, CJ Jones, Joe Bernthal, Flea, Lanny Joon, Brogan Hall, Allison King, Sky Ferreira, Lance Palmer, Hudson Meek, Hal Whiteside
Action/Crime/Music - 113 min Reviewed by Charlie Juhl on 24 Jun 2017
I classify writer/director Edgar Wright as a ‘Wouldn’t it be funny’ guy. Shaun of the Dead (2004) is wouldn’t it be funny if the local couch-surfing, do-nothing guy became a zombie-fighting action hero? Wouldn’t it be funny if a hotshot London cop transferred to a country village and confronted a decapitation mystery? That was Hot Fuzz (2007). Concluding what some refer to as the “Cornetto Trilogy”, The World’s End (2013) was wouldn’t it be funny if an epic pub crawl morphed into a drunken bid to save the world? Baby Driver is not so much ‘wouldn’t it be funny’ as it is ‘wouldn’t it be different.’ Wouldn’t it be different for an action film centered around armed robbery to have the getaway driver and the film’s entire atmosphere choreograph their movements to music? Baby Driver is a fresh and creative interpretation of a thoroughly mined genre which comes across too cool for school. I dig the style and I really dig Lily James, but a second half fondness for cliché gun battles in a film which set itself up apart from the standard bang bang shoot-em-up settles into a ‘what could have been’ reaction rather than a “Wow, now that was new!”
Our getaway driver with lightning-quick reflexes calls himself Baby (Ansel Elgort, Allegiant). Baby moves through life with a pair of omnipresent earbuds blaring a steady succession of iPod playlists into his skull. Baby has rhythm. He drives to the beat, he shuffles down the street to get coffee to the beat, and for some odd reason, he is shocked when he continuously almost gets run over in the street; you’re listening to music in the middle of the road without maintaining situational awareness for oncoming traffic Baby, don’t act so shocked when you all of a sudden fall over a car which must stop short. Baby is the getaway driver in a rotating crew of loose cannon criminals far more hardcore than he is. Even though Baby looks like he is just out of high school, he already declares he only has one more job to do. This is mighty tough talk for a sentence which should be said by a veteran cop or aging safe cracker.
Our getaway driver with lightning-quick reflexes calls himself Baby (Ansel Elgort, Allegiant). Baby moves through life with a pair of omnipresent earbuds blaring a steady succession of iPod playlists into his skull. Baby has rhythm. He drives to the beat, he shuffles down the street to get coffee to the beat, and for some odd reason, he is shocked when he continuously almost gets run over in the street; you’re listening to music in the middle of the road without maintaining situational awareness for oncoming traffic Baby, don’t act so shocked when you all of a sudden fall over a car which must stop short. Baby is the getaway driver in a rotating crew of loose cannon criminals far more hardcore than he is. Even though Baby looks like he is just out of high school, he already declares he only has one more job to do. This is mighty tough talk for a sentence which should be said by a veteran cop or aging safe cracker.
Baby rubs his fellow criminal co-workers the wrong way. He’s too innocent looking, he’s too aloof, and he emits a vibe that he operates on a plane above them while he sits in the back of the room with shades on, tapping his fingers to his music, while everybody else sits up front planning the job. Baby gets away with it because the gang’s boss, Doc (Kevin Spacey, Horrible Bosses 2), knows talent when he sees it and knows Baby will get the job done. When you trust in elite skills, you’re more inclined to give a little leeway in the more bureaucratic moments of conspiracy to commit armed robbery.
Matching Baby’s inability to sit still, Edgar Wright’s camera is over caffeinated as well. It’s always circling, probing, and zooming in and out of car windows as it films yet another car chase through the crowded, daylight Atlanta streets. The spinning takes a break when Baby visits his local diner to flirt with the new waitress, Debora (Lily James, Wrath of the Titans). Debora is a girl who only exists in the movies; you would never meet someone like her in a million years at any restaurant. She’s an ideal who only exists when you walk into a diner and goes on pause when you leave. Debora isn’t from anywhere, she has no discernible friends or family, and is a ready-made wandering spirit meant to show Baby there is an alternative to his criminal side if he so chooses. What does Debora want; what are her dreams? Doesn’t matter, that’s not why her character exists.
Ansel Elgort was a bold choice for Edgar Wright. Mostly known in young millennial circles as Tris’s brother in the Divergent franchise and as the creepy male lead in The Fault in Our Stars, Elgort straps on a shifty southern accent along with his quirk. Why is it Hollywood getaway drivers are always a bit different than the stock criminal? In Drive, Ryan Gosling’s driver was an existential philosopher in between brief jaunts behind the wheel. Jason Statham’s Transporter always looked in the bag right after he explained in voiceover his creed of never looking in the bag. He may not count because he drove a taxi instead of a getaway car, but De Niro’s Travis Bickle is his own psychology class full of neuroses to dissect.
Perhaps the most out of place character in the ensemble is Jamie Foxx as the chaotic Bats. While Baby can almost convince himself he only drives and doesn’t have much to do with the bad stuff, Bats is a walking mass murderer. He must single-handedly be responsible of half of Atlanta’s homicides. Kevin Spacey’s Doc is so meticulous and tactically proficient, it is hard to believe he would employ a cold-blooded killer who would as soon shoot anyone in the face rather than just walk by them. Doc is a Fagin archetype to Baby and is a leading candidate to emerge as the film’s primary antagonist; however, who that ultimately turns out to be emerges as a haphazard pick where Wright threw characters at the wall to see who would stick. Yet, Baby Driver is a refreshing morsel to chew on amidst its cousins of stale, crusty counterparts. Wouldn’t it be funny if more filmmakers took on the challenge of originality?
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