Lots of flash

Rating: 4/10 (18 December 2017)

Watching Baby Driver I can't help but wonder as Kevin Spacey's career is in crisis
mode is Baby Driver a film he might want to have as a swan song? He chews a
bit of scenery, but it's in keeping with his character and so is everyone else in the
film.
If you like car chases this is your film. If you like teen idols with a bit of pout this
is also your film. Ansel Elgort plays an early 20 something with two distinctions,
he's hard of hearing and he drives with the speed and skill of someone in the
Earnhardt clan.
Elgort is in the title role and his nickname is Baby and relative to the rest of the
crews he works on robberies as a getaway driver he is a baby.. Spacey also
considers him a good luck charm and there most definitely is something going
on with the two of them that he can't do without him. He says himself this
Reifenschneider planner character that he always gets a different crew for each
job other than Elgort who is a constant.
Back when I was at the Crime Victims Board I had a case of someone being
wounded in a robbery attempt of a post office looking for benefits as an innocent victim. I remember asking the assigned detective why would anyone
rob a post office because that's federal jurisdiction bringing in the FBI and the
post office's own police (they have their own police, note the Alan Ladd classic
Appointment With Danger). He replied he couldn't figure it out unless you
delve into insanity.
Kevin, that's the reason that post offices don't often get robbed not because
they're neglected. The big brain of a caper would know that.
Hearing the allegations of sexual abuse coming out now about Spacey you also
have to wonder about him and Elgort. Sad, but true and the producers certainly couldn't anticipate the great sexual harassment epidemic springing
up when Baby Driver was cast and made. Now as we watch the movie on TV
and on DVD and live streamed the viewer will wonder also.
But apart from that Baby Driver has a lot of flash and very little substance to it.