A terrific mixtape of summer escapism, Baby Driver, director Edgar Wright’s crime-comedy thriller musical is cool, smart, suspenseful, and just sentimental enough to shift emotions to ‘engage,’ with exciting and elegantly choreographed car-chase action, quirky characters, and a soundtrack with so much groove it’s almost shocking that the audience doesn’t just get up and dance. Wright has an impressive track record of films – the Cornetto trilogy (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End), Scott Pilgrim – that are delightfully obsessive and replete with detail, yet don’t take themselves too seriously, indulging in passion with a smile. Baby Driver takes its name from the eponymous Simon and Garfunkel song, with its protagonist Baby (Ansel Elgort) exuding a similar aura of innocence with a tantalizing suggestion of danger.
Out of sync with the rest of the world in the most appealing way, Baby goes through life connected to his earbuds, with a collection of iPods, with playlists to suit every mood and moment, and decorated to match. At first sight, sitting in the car, moving to the beat and playing air guitar for kicks while he waits for his partners in crime to return, it’s easy to underestimate this fellow with his youthful, clean-cut good looks. He could be any young criminal fool. But once the gang comes running out, looking good with their stylish shades and black trench coats, and Baby goes into action behind the wheel for an exhilarating getaway – all to the tune of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s Bellbottoms, you know he’s “the best in the business.” The problem is, Baby doesn’t really want to be in the business.
The flow of music and action is almost surreal, with wonderful choreography that transforms even the simplest action sequences, like Baby going out to get coffee, into mesmerizing scenes. Imagine the insane heart-stopping synesthesia of total sensory immersion when the numbers on the speedometer start to climb.
Baby is in over his head with the bad guys, and what a nefarious crew they are! Kevin Spacey is at his quietly menacing best as the boss, while Bats (Jamie Foxx) takes crazy to a whole new level of manic energy. Buddy (Jon Hamm) and his Darling (Eiza Gonzalez) are the epitome of twisted, bad to the bone, and in love. Smart and without a moral qualm to be found in the entire bunch, these are the kind of people you don’t want to cross. They are so much fun to watch, you almost want to root for them. Most worthy adversaries.
Lily James is sweetly alluring as diner waitress Debora, her bluesy rendition of Carla Thomas’s B-A-B-Y (written by Isaac Hayes and David Porter) would convince anyone to give up a life of crime. Then there’s Pops (CJ Jones) who’s done his best to raise Baby after a tragic accident left him an orphan.
Ansel Elgort is extremely well cast as Baby, and not only because he was the teen heart-throb love interest in The Fault in Our Stars, and the erudite yet rather clueless Caleb in the Divergent series. Elgort is also a musician, with a DJ alter-ego presence on the music scene as Ansolo. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Elgort said of music: “It’s sort of my obsession. When you’re obsessed with something and love to do it, it’s not hard to find time to do it… It’s what I love to do. My favorite thing to do is just to sit and work on music on my computer.” He’s recorded a cool track To Life, with one of my favorite bands, Too Many Zooz, merging live instruments with electronic music. Elgort posted on his Ansolo facebook page about the recording, writing: “We were inspired by Yiddish Klesmer dance music, real old school groovy party music. The break slows all the way down to 60BPM and then comes back to smash you in the face! L’chaim!!!”
Baby Driver is the movie of the summer!
