"Baby Driver" Review
"Baby Driver" is a high octane joy ride that can be summed up as a nearly 2-hour-long music video with plenty of car chases and biting humour that long time Edgar Wright fans would come to expect.
It tells the story of "Baby" (Ansel Elgort) a highly skilled getaway driver who has tinnitus and uses music to drown out the noise. Along for the ride we have Lily James, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Eiza Gonzálezm and a criminally underutilized Jon Bernthal who are all able to deliver sharp and emotionally poignant performances based off of Wright's punchy and often stylized mobster dialogue that only a filmmaker like himself can get away with at this day and age.
Sprinkled generously throughout its 113 minute runtime is an eclectic selection of hard rock, pop ballads, traditional R&B, soul, hip-hop, jazz and electronic music that are all seamlessly incorporated and timed to Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss' virtuosic editing that's accented by impeccable sound design and Bill Pope's kinetic long-take-heavy cinematography. It's mind boggling how a movie like this is possible to put together that somehow is able to balance great character work with comedy and heart-stopping stunts, yet Baby Driver succeeds in what most action movies fail at. If I were to pinpoint a flaw it would be the movie's focus on plot rather than characters (though again, the characters in it are great). Wright seems to always have a bit of trouble fleshing out female characters who are usually in the story to propel the plot, and this, unfortunately, is still the case (though Lily James is able to bring a certain vulnerability and likability to the somewhat boring role of Baby's love interest), and lastly the sound mix made it a bit hard to decipher dialogue at times but these are all minor issues in the grand scheme.
Baby Driver is a tour de force in direction and editing. It brings great comedy, and high emotional stakes and combines it with amazing stunts, editing and music to jaw dropping effect. It's fast-paced and endearing and deserves your attention and multiple viewings.