A Triumph in Musical Setting: or, Disney's Great Regret

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2017)

Aside from being an excellent film on its own merits, I took a personal liking to Baby Driver because it vindicated an opinion I've held for quite some time: that Disney made a huge mistake not casting Ansel Elgort (Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars) as the young Han Solo in their upcoming prequel-spin off.
Of course, that's not to besmirch the excellent acting chops of Alden Ehrenreich (Hail, Caesar!), who I'm sure will do just fine in the role. But if there's anything that Baby Driver proves well, actually, it proves two things. First, Elgort can pull of a laconic, suave lady's man like few others of his generation, and second, audiences will turn up and shell out for original content.
In a world of eight (eight!) Fast & Furious movies, an endless stream of Transformers, and a burgeoning, unwieldy universe of Marvel superheroes, that a movie like Baby Driver could be made at all is practically astonishing. Imagine the pitch that had to be made for this film: "We want to make a movie about a kid with tinnitus who listens to music all the time to drown it out, but he's gotten into some trouble and now he drives around baddies on their heists, but also he feels very conflicted about this. Oh, and it's basically all set to music." I'd think most studios would have tuned out after "tinnitus." But despite Hollywood's saddening obsession with repetition, this movie was made, and it's without a doubt the best car-themed film since Mad Max: Fury Road.
As for the direction, Edgard Wright displays an excellent hand throughout what must have been a difficult movie to film, but the unique humor and style that he has developed in earlier films doesn't appear as prominently in this latest addition to his oeuvre. Although Hot Fuzz and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World are great movies, they feel nothing alike to Baby Driver. Honestly, had someone asked me who the director was without my knowing, I would have guessed that Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land) had tried his hand at action- thrillers—a good idea, by the way, he should do that. Which brings us to the music. Wow. I thought that Guardian of the Galaxy's soundtrack was amazing, but Baby Driver may well have it beat, and it certainly ups the ante on music-plot synchronization. It's refreshing to see so many directors, Chazelle most prominently, reincorporating music as a central element of their movies, and I hope to see more of this in the future.
As for the acting, the dialogue is actually somewhat sparse. That's okay though, because what little of it there is is well-written and well-delivered. Jon Hamm (Mad Men) and Jamie Foxx (Django Unchained, Jarhead) clash well in their intra-heist-crew feuds, and Hamm's Bonnie-and-Clyde-esque relationship with Eiza González (more or less new to American movies) is whimsically fun. Lily James (Downton Abbey, Cinderella), Elgort's romantic interest, carries herself well throughout, but she's frankly not asked to do a whole lot, one of the movie's few downsides.
Of course, the real star of the film is Elgort, who balances his character's brazen confidence behind the wheel with the more hesitant, awkward romantic off the streets. His ability to wordlessly communicate aloof, troubled charm is maddening if only because I wanted so badly for him to get the Han role. But it's okay, because even if the as-yet-untitled Han Solo spin-off completely bombs, we will still have Baby Driver: one of the only original, engaging, and innovative action-thrillers in far too long.