If you loved Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, you’ll love this – Edgar Wright’s masterpiece
Lovable characters with charismatic, excellent performances
Thrilling action with some of the best car scenes in cinema
Enough comedy to keep you laughing
One of the best movie soundtracks
Main female character doesn’t get to do much and is relegated to a love interest (but such a lovely character played so well, it almost doesn’t matter…)
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It’s not unknown for great British directors to pick up and go to America to seize the opportunity to create bigger, better movies. Alfred Hitchcock is a good example; Charlie Chaplin and Ridley Scott are others; and so is Edgar Wright. Known for stylish films packed with crazy fun, from Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, it is this kind of cinematic thrill we expect from Wright’s latest film, Baby Driver. Fortunately, it doesn’t disappoint; Wright is clearly on top of his game.
Baby (Ansel Elgort) is a music-loving getaway driver, constantly with earphones in, working for crime boss Doc (Kevin Spacey). He drives the likes of Griff (Jon Bernthal), Buddy (Jon Hamm) and Darling (Eiza Gonzalez) to and from robberies, making sure they evade the cops. Determined and confident he’s finished with that life after paying off Doc what he owed, he forms a romance with beautiful waitress and fellow music-lover Debora (Lily James). However when he’s pulled back in for one more job by Doc, he’s forced to work with volatile psychopath Bats (Jamie Foxx) who leads everyone down a dangerous road and makes this last job Baby’s most dangerous drive yet…
Yet it’s still an action movie – and thank goodness for that because the action is wonderful. It’s best in the finale, yet it’s peppered throughout the whole film and is exemplary of how well choreographed and filmed action films can (and should) be when a master is behind the camera. With one instance of shocking violence for you gore fans, the action scenes keep you on the edge of your seat, eyes bulging and heart racing. This is how car chases should be and this movie has some of the best, thrilling and imaginative car scenes since Mad Max: Fury Road.
This motif of music is an interesting one and helps with the characters, specifically Baby and his deaf foster father Joseph (CJ Jones). In fact this is the best “musical” since La La Land… actually, it’s probably even more of a musical than La La Land; the music’s as consistent as Les Miserables with the best movie soundtrack since the first Guardians of the Galaxy; a variety of catchy, famous songs that bring so much to the movie (a confrontation scene towards the end, for example, wouldn’t be remotely sexy without Barry White’s ‘Never, Never Gonna Give You Up’). These songs sometimes have the potential to say more about Baby’s character than any of his actually lines do, showing we don’t always need Tarantino levels of dialogue to develop and get to know a character (not a criticism of Tarantino, just a comment on how Wright is a master in his own, different way). This film is a music nerd’s dream and Baby will no doubt enter cinema and music iconography.