No greatness, but a fun watch with cult potential

Rating: 6/10 (2 August 2017)

"Baby Driver" is a British/American co-production from this year that made pretty big waves recently. Only part of it is justified I guess. But first things first: The writer and director of this 110-minute movie is Edgar Wright and he is mostly known so far for his collaborations with Simon Pegg. But for this new movie, he is the man in charge alone. Oh yeah and Scott Pilgrim he made too and you can maybe see a parallel here and there in terms of the style, even if the subject and genres are entirely different here for sure. You get a mix of music and crime in this new one with an ounce of romance, lots of action and thriller elements. Don't be fooled by the title here, this was a pretty tense and entertaining work from start to finish. I think it has all the ingredients to become as much of a success as Scott Pilgrim, probably even a better lead actor. I won't go into detail a lot about the story, lets just give a really basic summary. This is the story of a young man who is a highly gifted driver, a prodigy really and we find out what happens when he tries to make his criminal endeavors a thing of the past.
His boss is played by 2-time Oscar winner winner Kevin Spacey, one of his partners in crime is played by Oscar winner Jamie Foxx (nice Oscar quote by him too) and the third big name is Jon Hamm, the star from Mad Men, one of the finest shows in television history and with his turn here he absolutely made the successful transition from small screen star to big screen star if he hadn't before already. No doubt we will see him in many more theatrical releases in the next years/decades. If lead actor Elgort is not bringing it for you, or the stunning Lily James who plays his love interest and light at the end of the tunnel, then one of the aforementioned trio should for sure I hope. I personally found it an interesting idea to have Hamm be the main antagonist eventually and the earlier statement by Eiza González' character was a good indicator of the ending. You sure would expect Spacey's character to be the main antagonist, or Foxx' as Hamm even lets the Driver get away before Foxx shows up before the escalation at the end. Anyway, Hamm did an amazing job and was maybe the best thing about the entire film (besides James' looks). But here we also get to one of the film's weaknesses. Spacey's character's transformation into loyal helper really went against everything we learned about him earlier. Another issue was the protagonist turning into a real survivalist with everything that happens to him as the film's core is that he is really just the driver, not the fighter who even gets his hands dirty. It did not feel too realistic that apparently he has more very refined skills in other fields.
But I still believe that the positive and entertaining here was way more frequent than the negative. For example a scene at the very beginning stayed in my mind when we don't see the action in the bank, but the action in the car as it is all about Baby, the entire film. And the songs used in here were good choices for sure. I liked listening to them, even if I did not know them, as they fit the particular situation nicely. I kept wondering if there will be a sequel, but with everything that happened in the last half hour and also the major flash forward at the very end, it seems almost impossible, especially given the fact Wright is not known at all for sequels to his big successes. This one here is quickly turning into one of these. It is certainly not as great as IMDb voters, who include it in the best 250 films ever made, or critics want us to believe at this point, but it felt like a pretty nicely handled slightly under 2 hours that will probably never be considered mediocre or weak filmmaking. And rightfully so. I enjoyed this movie for a whole bunch of reasons and I am sure that for example the F&F franchise can learn a whole lot from this one on how to combine car action and convincing story-telling. "Baby Driver" gets a thumbs-up from me and it is among the best fun films of 2017 so far, most likely gonna stay there until the end of the year.