Brilliant!

Rating: 8/10 (25 June 2017)

Director Edgar Wright's newest and most outwardly conventional film Baby Driver is nothing short of a new definition in cool. Aided by an eclectic soundtrack, a stylish and engrossing caper story and Wright's meticulously crafted look and feel, the film soars like rarely a movie of this stripe has soared before. At its height Baby Driver feels like the mordant composure of a Jean-Pierre Melville's crime thriller is being spun around on a Looney Tune Acme thingamajig. It sounds like it shouldn't work but after seeing what is most definitely the best crime comedy in years, having this particular mix of awesome is the equivalent of accidentally getting chocolate in your peanut butter.
The film sets itself at the center of a criminal underworld dominated by greed and ego. Yet the world of Baby (Elgort) feels unnaturally bright by comparison. And why shouldn't it be; He's only a job or two away from retiring as an infinitely skilled getaway driver. A driver whose handler (Spacey) trusts him enough to shuttle his various criminal enterprises in and around the Atlanta downtown loop. "I never work with the same crew twice, except for you," says Spacey in a rare moment of rare avuncular appreciation. Baby in-turn answers with Monsters, Inc. (2001) quotes. He's one foot out the door and clearly happy to be.
As with all movies of this kind, things don't go exactly according to plan. A plot point that looms larger as Baby starts dating a peppy waitress named Debora (James) who shares his love of music. It's a love of necessity as the music is used to drown out his tinnitus, as well as having the duel purpose of being getaway driving focus fuel and a framing device for the audience.
And what remarkably obsessive frames we end up going through. To point out that Baby Driver has a handful of incredible car chases verges on the obvious. Yet what the trailer might not tell you about are the various visual and audio cues that create an echo chamber of gags, setups, callbacks, pacing devices and tension builders. They're meant to please the ears and tickle the brain and boy do they ever. In one moment of frazzled suspense, the sound mixing erupts in a cacophony of gunfire, sneaker squeaks, screaming on-lookers and the non-diegetic guitar riffs of "Hocus Pocus" blaring on Baby's iPod. In other scenes the body language of supporting cast members sync up perfectly with whatever Baby is listening to, hinting to a heightened reality that only Baby experiences in the recesses of his headphones. Baby Driver is not strictly speaking a musical, but it might as well be.
In the hands of any other director, Baby Driver still would have been good, perhaps edging out The Italian Job (2003) in its ability to balance fast fun and elevating stakes. Yet in the hands of Edgar Wright (who also wrote the screenplay), Baby Driver feels alive, tight, tactile and dare I say even original. It's an exercise in style that zips by with such eye-popping aplomb and works on so many levels that I'm honestly surprised the reigns of this beast didn't slip out of Wright's hands. This movie could have easily been another Transformers (2007) i.e. visually resplendent but far too slapdash for its strengths to be appreciated.
No - this movie wants to be appreciated. It wants to be oogled at and admired and further distills its energy with a supporting cast that either meets or exceed it. Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal, Lanny Joon and Flea all do wonders playing the various psychotics that encircle Baby like a murder of crows. Their characterizations are buoyant as a whole with Hamm and Gonzalez standing out as a criminal couple whose psychosis is just this side of Bonnie and Clyde (1967).
Then of course there's Ansel Elgort who often feels like a millennial remix of the cool, detached, petty criminal trope made famous by Alain Delon's trademark smolder. Here his detachment hides a vulnerability - a hidden need to find life outside of crime, a deep desire to not see anyone get hurt and of course his creative outlet. An outlet that refreshingly switches off his defenses and gets him to instantly dance like no one is watching.
If there is one sour note in this car chase opera, it's the romance. While the rest of the film owns its stylistic excesses, the budding romance between Baby and Debora is played straight and more than a little syrupy. What's worse is because the character of Debora largely lacks depth or agency, huge swaths of the second act feel like we're setting up the marbles and levers of a rube-goldberg machine with Debora being one of said marbles.
Yet when everything is in motion, Baby Driver can't help but be an incredible romp. Nearly everything to this movie fires on all cylinders. And in the drivers seat is arguably one of the most fertile and creative movie minds of the 21st century. Shaun of the Dead (2004), Hot Fuzz (2007), Scott Pilgrim (2010), World's End (2013) and now this? Seriously what can't Edgar Wright do?