When an Edgar Wright movie comes along, it’s imperative that you see it. So far, at least to me, none of his movies have been misses: the Cornetto Trilogy and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, if they haven’t already, will be remembered as some of the great films of the early millennium. Baby Driver is certainly being reviewed like it will be among them. Personally, Baby Driver feels more like Edgar Wright trying to stick it to the movie machine business for kicking him out of a superhero movie instead of being a really great genre parody that doubles as a genre movie, what the director does best.
No, this is not about little babies driving cars (though Edgar Wright can direct that too if he wants). It’s about Baby (Ansel Elgort), a young man who’s an expert at getaway driving, particularly for mobster extraordinaire Doc (Kevin Spacey). What makes Baby special is that he has tinnitus (he hears a persistent ringing in his ears from an accident as a kid), forcing him to listen to music to drown it out, and therefore soundtrack his getaways. One day, Baby runs into Debora (Lily James), whom he is instantly smitten with, making him want out of the getaway business. Doc has him drive one last job for lovers Buddy (Jon Hamm) and Darling (Eliza Gonzalez), as well as Bats (Jamie Foxx) who has a few screws loose and leaves carnage after every outing.
Edgar Wright wants to send up the car action movie genre and clearly researched the genre a lot. However, these send ups in Shaun of the Dead or Hot Fuzz provide some bite to the story and get the biggest laughs (think the post apocalypse walk in Shaun of the Dead). In Baby Driver, the send ups exist almost for the sake of doing them, like how the person Baby cares for is SUPER crippled, or how the last job gets done and that’s sort of it, but then the movie continues. Maybe it’s because Baby Driver isn’t really a comedy, but I find the movie’s upending of the genre not nearly as fruitful as Wright’s earlier efforts. However, it’s not a total loss: the opening chase is stellar, as well as a foot pursuit and some foot vs. car action. However, Baby Driver lacks the transcendence of Wright’s earlier Simon Pegg efforts.
Some of this might be due to the fact that Wright basically wanted to choreograph a deep cut youtube playlist to a movie (the soundtrack will inspire a youtube search or 2, for sure). Nearly every scene of Baby Driver proceeds in lock step to music. Sometimes this is very fun and even breathtaking, like when Baby dances in the street, or when he has to restart a song to get the timing exactly right. However, this conceit is very constraining, most so on the plot and character development, solely relying on actor charisma. This is not a problem for the supporting cast: Jons Hamm and Bernthal, Eliza Gonzalez, Kevin Spacey, and (especially) Jamie Foxx can inject limited material with themselves to make the characters pop. Elgort, probably correctly, downplays Baby through actions and looks, reacting to his superior costars. As a result, this makes the guy the least interesting person in the film; in the big final chase sequence I felt nothing for him and Lily James even though the movie wants me to.
Baby Driver will not stop me from seeing the next Edgar Wright movie, it mostly just bummed me out in this craptastic summer movie season. I will revisit this film on music choice, but that’s about it. PUN ALERT: Ansel Elgort is clearly the fault in Baby Driver’s stars, if you asked me, or Shaliene Woodley.