A surprisingly intense but naturally exciting car-chase movie with heart

Rating: 8/10 (10 February 2020)

I finally got round to watching it! And it is yet again another great film by filmmaking maestro Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World) It began life in 2002 as the music video Wright directed for Mint Royale's Blue Song starring Noel Fielding, Julian Barratt, Nick Frost and Michael Smiley (awesome stuff) and is based on the character Baby played by Ansel Elgort (The Fault In Our Stars, Divergent series) who is a very talented getaway driver working for Doc (Kevin Spacey) paying off his debt in order to finally begin a peaceful life without crime. It's a very thrilling, at times amusing and feel good but mostly dramatic and intense watch. The intensity of the film surprised me, making for a very edge of your seat experience in which you really root for and want Baby to find his peace and leave the criminal world behind. A lot of the tension is brewed by Jamie Foxx's Bats; a genuinely terrifying psychopath who does not make things easy for our hero. Foxx is quite brilliant here as always along with a terrific cast including Spacey and Jon Hamm in great scenery chewing roles. Three particular stand outs for me were Elgort who is absolutely brilliant in the title role; Debora played by Lily James who is an incredibly cool character and Baby's true love in the story (James continues to proves she is one of the most engaging screen actors of our time) and last but not least Joseph played by CJ Jones, Baby's adoptive parent. A lovely heartfelt performance rounding off an ensemble of heartfelt performances. Wright's style is clearly seen here in full blissful musical style; the choreography is amazing and makes for such an entertaining watch. Wright's editing collaborators Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss do another wonderful job of splicing the fast paced camera shots together to form an elegant, artistic but very natural narrative stream. Definately check out if you're a fan of car chase movies and also like some great romance and intense drama on the side