Driven to Greatness

Rating: 10/10 (4 July 2017)

Before even looking at what makes this film special, Baby Driver already succeeds on its own as a hodgepodge of action, crime, heist, comedy, romance and drama that balances all elements pretty evenly and deftly. The pacing is nearly perfect and it's very simple and straightforward, but at the same time cleverly and engagingly plotted.
What takes this film to a special place is a literally unprecedented level of sound design detail. In several places, you can see elements of the lyrics in the song interacting with background elements and extras in the scene backgrounds. Not only is pretty much every gun shot and door slam and overall action element rhythm-synced to the ever-present soundtrack, but even less noticeable audio tricks fully immerse the audience in the shoes of our main character. For instance, in one dialogue-driven scene, the main character is listening to some other characters speak while keeping in one ear bud (headphone). I was sitting on the left hand side of the theater and the music seemed extremely faint, almost to where one can barely hear it. At first, I thought some inconsiderate asshole in the audience had a phone game with an instrumental loop running, and then I realized: they have the music turned down low and panned hard right as if we are hearing it exactly how the main character would. If this movie doesn't take the Oscar for sound design, something is clearly wrong.
The humor style and relentless pacing won't click with 100% of people, but I think the type of person that this film was intended for will love the film and that it also has some crossover appeal to those that aren't big action fans, as well. It also helps that it effortlessly covers so many bases in terms of defying genre conventions. Even the inclusion of certain genre clichés in this film feel more like a wink at the audience than a lack of creativity. Strongly recommended for all fans of action, comedy and music!