Mini Review - Baby Driver

Baby driver was my favourite movie of 2017. It received critical acclaim upon release, including several academy award nominations, and made a respectable profit on its relatively small budget. So why is it worthy of all this, let’s dive in and find out.

Baby driver tells the story of Baby (Ansel Elgort) and he’s a driver, hence the title. He’s a getaway driver for crime boss Doc (played regrettably by Kevin Spacey) and thanks to years of practice and fairly solid motivation, he’s a really good getaway driver, but he isn’t a criminal in the usual sense, he isn’t fond of the violence and many of Doc’s crew question his worth for that reason.

Baby is only there because he owes Doc money after stealing his car and all his goods when he was an angry child, but he thinks it’s nearly over and they’re square. But he soon finds out that while they’re definitely square, it’s never going to be over. Complicating matters for him further is him meeting Debora (Lily James) they quickly bond and it’s one of his few sources of happiness in life, so what can he do when the next heist goes horribly wrong.

I suppose I should start with the USP of this movie over other action movies, the music. Part of Baby’s character is that he was involved in an accident that screams Jessica Jones too me. His parents were both killed because they were too busy arguing to see what’s ahead of them. Instead of super strength, Baby was left with tinnitus, and listens to music to drown it out.

That gives them a great reason for a fantastic soundtrack and boy does this movie have that but that’s nothing new, what’s great here is the sound editing. The music is timed to the action, which is unimpressive if it were a custom soundtrack but this is timed to actual songs and it shows incredible direction, sound design, editing, writing the whole works. Edgar Wright truly showed his talents with this project.

Whilst there are some minor set-pieces in the lead-up to the final heist, there are 3 major car sequences in the movie. They cleverly introduce the characters for the final heist during the first two, allowing us to get a feel for what the characters are like before the sh*t hits the proverbial fan. Jamie Foxx’s Bats seems the least stable of the 3, and you might think is the biggest threat, something confirmed later as he stages a shootout after discovering what he thinks is an undercover cop.

But they turn it on its head, the last survivor is in fact Jon Hamm’s Buddy, the seemingly friendliest of the 3 crew-members and the most emotionally stable. At least until his wife Darling (Elsa Gonzales) is killed when the sh*t hits the fan, a fact he blames Baby for. Their final confrontation combines the good stunt driving we’d been seeing, with some great moments of tension.

Each of the 3 heists features plenty of stunt driving set-pieces. None of them go on long enough to outstay their welcome and they’re all well shot, and of course, timed to the music.

So, I have now watched this film 4 times, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I love this movie in spite of its faults, which I will now go over. Obviously the issues with Kevin Spacey playing a character like this given his accusations are obvious, but I can’t fault the filmmakers for that too much as the allegations came out after this movie's initial release.

More importantly is the mix-tape thing. One of Baby’s quirks is making mix-tapes of conversations he has during his heists. Not only is that incredibly stupid but when it’s ultimately discovered there are no real lasting consequences to it. There are 2 reasons it exists, the first is when Baby plans to leave in the night, he's stopped, something that could’ve easily been accomplished without the tapes and the second is to have Baby want to come back to Doc wanting the tape belonging to his mother. If Doc had just decided to just use it as leverage to get him on board, this could’ve still happened without Baby being a massive moron.

Some of the romantic banter is a little, terrible too.

But in spite of 2 minor flaws in my eyes, I still thoroughly enjoy this movie, even if less so than during the my original watch.

Rating 80/100