Baby Driver

When a director describes their newest film as a ‘passion project’, a few things come to mind; a slow-burning, thought-provoking and deeply personal piece that the creator has worked toward for their entire career, often taking on projects that do not satisfy them artistically, just to craft their masterpiece. Think Spielberg’s harrowing Schindler’s List, Martin Scorsese’s meditative Silence or Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia, inspired by the directors’ own relationship with his father. What rarely comes to mind is a high octane, pedal-to-the-floor car chase movie set almost entirely to music. Enter Baby Driver, the passion project of British writer/director Edgar Wright, a film which subverts expectations from the beginning and continues to do so throughout its snappy one hundred and thirteen minute run-time.
Ansel Elgort stars as Baby, a young getaway driver indebted to Kevin Spacey’s mob boss Doc. Baby uses music to drown out the tinnitus in his ear, following the childhood car crash that killed both of his parents. Wright cleverly weaves this aspect of the protagonist’s character into the direction of the film, setting almost every action scene to a cleverly curated soundtrack, with gun shots and hand break turns in-sync with the beat of the songs. Doc’s mob is rounded out by Jon Hamm as the effortlessly cool Buddy; Eliza Gonzalez as his equally cool partner in crime Darling and Jamie Foxx, who takes a cartoonish and often immersion-breaking turn as Bats, an off-the-wall gunslinger with a penchant for murder. While Wright has become known for his action-comedies (see: Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim), and there are moments of levity within Baby Driver, it is a much more serious affair. Foxx’s outlandish turn as Bats sometimes feels out of place, especially compared to the much more hard-nosed supporting cast. While these characters are not given much time to develop in the first half of the film, they reveal themselves more clearly as the action hightens towards the end of the second act. 

At the centre of Baby Driver is the romance between Baby and Debora (Lily James), a down-and-out waitress who dreams of hitting the road and never looking back. Baby sees Debora as his ticket away from a life of crime to which he is not suited, and the two plan their escape. This romance never detracts from the action, and only increases the stakes as ‘one last job’ goes south and Baby must protect the woman he loves from his criminal colleagues. Their relationship is developed throughout the film in such a way that the audience never doubts the lengths Baby goes through to save Debora towards the film’s climax, with Wright cleverly using slower romance scenes as a relief from the throttling action. 

Throughout his career, Edgar Wright has been keen to point out and subvert clichés of the genres he operates within, be it in the quietness of countryside policing in crime thriller Hot Fuzz, the muddle-through, quintessentially British nature of the characters in Shaun of the Dead, or essentially any given episode of cult sitcom Spaced. As a result, the use of the ‘one last job gone wrong’ trope in Baby Driver seems lazy by Wright’s previously high standards. As soon as Doc blackmails a lovestruck Baby into getting behind the wheel one last time, it’s obvious something is going to go horribly wrong. Luckily, Wright finds a way to turn this cliché into something much more unique; rapidly increasing the tension and amping-up the action as the film enters its second act, after which the plot doesn’t slow down for a second. There’s no third-act break, no moment of respite for Baby as he escapes his chasers, just a rapidly unfolding series of high stakes action sequences. 

The second half of Baby Driver is where Wright’s direction truly shines; shoot-outs evolve quickly into car chases, the car chases give way to rapid foot chases, and back to car chases again. In a Hollywood landscape where mainstream action is becoming increasingly far-fetched, the street-level, gritty and largely in-camera action of Baby Driver is a welcome relief. Wright’s signature rapid editing style never feels like a crutch to hide his actors abilities (or lack thereof), only serving to increase the pace and excitement of the film. In addition, the musical backdrop and minimal dialogue of these action sequences ensures that the scenes never devolve into endless quipping between characters, a relatively new, post-Marvel annoyance in modern action films.

In 2017, films like Baby Driver should be treasured; an original action film that doesn’t rely on a movie star to draw people in. It’s a film created with a clear reverence for classic Hollywood, but that never feels like it’s looking down upon its audience. Yes it’s loud, occasionally obnoxiously so, but it knows it is, and it doesn’t care. It’s characters may be archetypes and it’s plot somewhat predictable, but when a film is as fun and has as much heart as Baby Driver, it doesn’t matter.  

7.5/10