From the great characters and pumping action to the absolutely fantastic soundtrack, the latest from Edgar Wright hits all the right notes.
The movie jumps right into the action as we join Baby (Ansel Elgort), Griff (Jon Bernthal), Buddy (Jon Hamm) and Darling (Eiza González) as they rob an inner city bank. We only see the action from the perspective of Baby as he sits in his car jamming to the excellent soundtrack, occasionally breaking concentration as he watches his partners inside. Without any words spoken we understand what’s happening, his personality and how it contrasts with those performing the heist. This lack of spoken word storytelling permeates the entire movie to great effect with the soundtrack matching the mood of our protagonist.
The overall plot is relatively simple – Baby is drawn into the world of crime and is forced to pay off his debt by running jobs, he meets a girl (Lily James), one of the heights goes haywire and he’s forced to flee from the goods guys and the bad in a Bonny and Clyde sort of way.
Some of the characters are admittedly one dimensional. Bats comes across as a chaotic evil, chip on shoulder generic thug and the throw away mobsters are mostly used for comic relief. Buddy and Darling are alluded to having a backstory but it’s never fully explored and Griff is too similar to Bats. Doc (Kevin Spacey) is clearly a family man which makes it hard to believe he would risk his life at the end of the movie and go all guns blazing. Baby and Deborah have the most going for them, Baby being a shy recluse living with his deaf uncle (CJ Jones) and Deborah presumably living alone after recently losing someone she was caring for and wanting to escape her job as a waitress.
The movie remains fast paced throughout, slowing down to allow for the Baby + Deborah storyline. One section that felt very out of place was during the final heist. The gang are instructed to meet up with a gun runner to buy some new hardware, which is strange as Doc had been told that the cashier in the post office they were targeting would give up easily. Anyway, the gun runner turns out being some comical villain who treats his weapons like cuts of meat. It just didn’t fit the rest of the movie which up until that point was grounded in reality and didn’t serve that big of a plot point, basically an excuse to lay low and postpone the heist for a night. However it did have Tequila by The Champs as the background music which does redeem it a little.
One of the many strong points that I appreciated was that the protagonist didn’t outright win. After being an acomplice in armed heists, evading arrest and murder it would have been ridiculous for him to get away scot-free. It was pleasantly surprising to see that Baby did actually pay for his crimes and go to jail, on a reduced sentence for the good behaviour we see throughout the movie. Not to mention he loses his hearing after the final fight with Buddy. We do however see his fantasy come true at the very end.
Another of the highlights is the soundtrack, you can find it [here on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/user/jibberboosh/playlist/3w5pFbbtAcwfV9UqXYzpni). Almost the entire movie is heard through Baby’s headphones (which is nicely explained into the plot of the movie). Even when the soundtrack flips and plays Young MC rap it’s only because that’s the music playing on the iPod of a stolen car. In a way it reminded me of the terrible 1991 movie Hudson Hawk where the heists were carried out to Bing Crosby songs
Baby Driver is a must watch film and can’t be expressed in words just how good it is. One of the only movies I’ve gone twice to watch at the cinema.