A missed opportunity

Rating: 5/10 (15 October 2017)

"Baby" is the name of some young phenomenal getawar car driver. We meet him while he sits in the car singing while the rest of the crew perform the heist. Yup, there's a heist in progress and we get so see some kid fool around in his car. Exciting, huh? What follows is some dumb dance routine as he brings coffee back to where the boss (Doc) is distributing the money. We are told everyone gets an equal cut but we learn that Baby only gets a tiny fraction. As it turns out, he's always been a great car driver and when he was even younger he stole Doc's car with merchandise in it. So he's repaying his debt by driving.
We also learn that he's got constant ringing in his ears from a car accident that killed his parents so he listens to music non-stop. He doesn't say much so everyone things he's dumb. We meet the foster father with whom he lives, some old guy deaf guy in a wheelchair. That gives us a chance to put up with more choreographed pseudo-dance routines. He knows what Baby is up to and hopes that he will dedicate himself to an honest job. Baby apparently doesn't need any money he just stashes it all under the floor. In his spare time he creates mixes based on stuff people say and that he records.
One day he meets the lovely Debora, a diner waitress and they fall for each other. Of course she dreams of nothing else but driving...where else...to the West. What a hell it must be living anywhere else. For the last job--yup, surprise, surprise his last job is coming up that will pay off all he owes and thus he'll gain his freedom--he meets the new crew which includes a violent and crazy guy named Bats. The job doesn't go smoothly. But with his debt paid, Baby now becomes a pizza delivery guy and can go out with the girl.
Except, Doc still needs a driver for his jobs. And by threatening Baby's loved ones, Baby has no choice but to accept. Of course now he will get paid in full. Even though Doc claims that he always works with a different crew (except for Baby of course) this time around we meet the same people from the first heist plus Bats. The next job will be to rob a Post Office for money orders but first they need to get weapons. Bats goes crazy during the weapons purchase and kills all the other guys.
The crew goes for sodas at the diner where Debora works....that's not good. But now Baby also plans to make Debora's dreams come true of escaping for good. This final final job also becomes bloody not to mention that by now everyone's suspicious of Baby, who will have to overcome his aversion to violence and somehow get the girl at the end.
I wasn't going to watch Baby Driver since I detest musicals and romance movies, but the very good trailer convinced me to give this movie a shot. But as always, the best parts were in the trailer and Baby Driver turned out to be a wasted opportunity. It could have been a strong action, romance, and yes, even music-oriented movie. Instead it focuses so much on music it makes you sick and of course the music is crap. No, it's not awful music but there wasn't a single good song in there either, since I guess they were looking for songs that feature the word "baby," hardly a criterion to find good music. The romance is predictable but surprisingly some of the things that happen at the end aren't. The action, limited here to the crew making its escape is nothing special. That they chose to feature mostly really lame cars didn't help.
I was convinced that the filmmakers would use the music excuse to give us a near silent film which has been an aspiration of Hollywood for decades now; just will the screen with CGI junk and noise. But there's actually some dialogue here, even though, Baby doesn't say much and his foster dad is deaf, but at least Spacey and Foxx are allowed to say something on occasion that isn't music-related, even though some of it doesn't make sense. Another plus is that the little action there is, is mostly filmed during the day and on location in Atlanta.
But aside from that Baby Driver doesn't really work. It's pleasant enough to watch, has some funny lines on occasion, but it want's to be more than it can be. The idea of some action musical isn't bad, but it should have been strong on action and light on music, not the other way around.