You know, there has been so much talk about how “cool” Baby Driver is. So many critics and people saying, “man it’s so cool”, “it just oozes coolness”. The film has been a long time coming and now that it’s finally out and I’ve seen it, and I finally get it: this film is cool. It’s so cool that it’s almost like James Dean, Quentin Tarantino and David Bowie just got together and made “Three Men & A Baby Driver” kind of cool.
So the film stars Ansel Elgort, who plays Baby, an incredibly talented getaway driver who drives to the beat of an astounding soundtrack. When Baby has finally paid off his debt to a criminal mastermind played by Kevin Spacey, he is pulled back into the world of bank robberies, car-jacking and danger around every corner when this new job pairs Baby with some volatile yet indispensably cool characters including Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, and Eiza Gonzalez. In between all this Baby is trying to run away with his new love Debora played by Lily James and try to protect his ailing foster-dad played by CJ Jones - oh yeah and it has a killer soundtrack and was written and directed by Edgar Wright.
Now it has been a long time between drives for Edgar Wright with one of the more obvious reasons being his commitment and then departure from 2015’s Ant-Man however this film really does feel like the return of an old creative buddy who wants to show you his latest batch of awesomeness. Of course no sooner than five minutes into the film we’ve had smarter storytelling, better cinematography and more creative car stunts than all of the Fast & Furious films combined.
But what is that makes Edgar Wright a one-of-a-kind director. It’s hard to pick a director that has the same type of creative energy and enthusiasm as Edgar Wright, and that’s no disrespect to other directors, it’s just that Edgar Wright films have a very unique feel. A rewatch-ability built from some incredibly passionate and layered filmmaking; from the storyline, to the cinematography, to the editing, to the unadulterated embrace of the genre, Edgar Wright films always have that special something. And Baby Driver is no different.
So what makes Baby Driver’s storyline so good? Well, it’s fairly simple: clear good guys, clear bad guys, clear motivations for all characters involved and ultimately this leads to Edgar Wright being able to layer the film with lots of incredibly subtle foreshadowing which will have you wanting to watch the film again and again. Be it the simple turn of phrase by a character, a innocent looking action of one of the key cast or something simply happening in the background; all of this adds up to great foreshadowing that links every element of the story together.
The cinematography is slick once again thanks to Edgar Wright’s third collaboration with The Matrix’s Bill Pope who has really helped to craft some of the most intense car and foot chases since The French Connection and as I mentioned before, leaves the Fast & Furious franchise in the slow lane. But beyond this, Bill Pope frames each shot to have impact, to have meaning; this obviously feeds into Edgar Wright’s foreshadowing and storytelling, but ultimately means your eyes are glued to the screen at all times.
Add to all this, Edgar Wright’s editing style which keeps the story moving, keeps the film lean and only enhances Bill Pope’s cinematography. The film moves so fast that blinking seems like a sin and reinforces yet again that the film needs to be seen more than once just to absorb everything that is infused into the film. Much like his previous films, this movie is edited in time with the soundtrack, however this time the soundtrack plays an even bigger role. It drives the story and sets the pace, and like all the songs featured in the film, it is fast, lean and pulsating to say the least.
Of course, the editing, cinematography and storyline are all in service to the getaway driver genre - much like all of Edgar Wright’s films, he fully immerses himself and the audience into the genre. Every word, every action is in service to the genre: characters act the way we expect in this genre, the beats hit the way they should in this genre and Wright manages to imprint a freshness to all these elements due to his passion for a project.
But is this film for everybody? It should be, but it won’t, some viewers may find the convenience and connections within the film all too… convenient. The humor may not be to everyone’s taste and the genre may not necessarily be that appealing. However, if you are looking for something fresh, fun and most importantly in a world filled with prequels, sequels, inbetweenquels, adaptations, and remakes, something that’s original; you may just find something to watch and rewatch again and again.
Baby Driver gets Four and a Half mixtape burn-out getaway good-times out of Five!