Pure cinema!

Rating: 9/10 (30 June 2017)

Calling BABY DRIVER a feature length car chase music video seems like it's not doing it justice. Here is a film that painstakingly syncs each scene with each appropriate needledrop song to make it look like the most audacious musical ever, but it offers so much more than that. Offering the same, shameless glee of earnest romance, over-the-top car chases, and effective gun-to-gun thrillers of decades past, BABY DRIVER is simply everything. It's top down genre mix taping, courtesy of an inspired and precise auteur of Edgar Wright who did the same idea with video games back with SCOTT PILGRIM.
Taken as a music video compilation though, it's pretty much next level. Each minute action and lip-synching is precisely matched to each 70-80s song that actually complements the circumstances of the plot. It's at times funny, foreshadowing, and at times grim, rewarding a lot of repeated viewings without being obscure.
Taken as a homage to old, sleazy action movies, it's as much inspired. Rather than being full-on parody like the Kornetto trilogy, it embraces its genre inconography, reminding us why we like it in the first place. That's why each car chase, running, and gunfight sequence looks almost as great as early Walter Hill flicks or this years JOHN WICK. Heck, there's a shootout warehouses scene that's so awesome it puts the entirety of FREE FIRE to shame!
Admits all of that though the movie is never oblivious to any genuine character moments and ace performances. Wright manages to accomplish specific character twists that both retorts their standard traits while also adding depth to them. For example, both John Hamm and Kevin Spacey might just be the breakout performances of this movie based solely on how they subvert our impressions of them. Ansel Egort does wonders in a role that seems too much like a clichéd wonder boy role, but comes aces as his own complex character. Baby's relationship with Debra feels like it's ripped wholesale from a Nick Sparks movie, but the execution feels honest and vacant of any BS contrivances.
BABY DRIVER is not only a testament to Edgar Wrights craftsmanship, but also a testament to how any genre film far from Hollywood dreck can still be as successful as this. The action is amazing, the music rocks, the performances are great, the cinematography and editing are pitch-perfect, and it all offers a bravura of thrills without sacrificing a true artists vision. It is pure cinema and one of the best films of the year.