DRIVE ALONG TO THE MUSIC
Filmmaker Edgar Wright delivers balletic, lyrical heist movie with Baby Driver
So the other day I’m making a casserole and listening to In The Mood by Glenn Miller — that’s right: Sometimes I like to cook like it’s the 1940s — and I notice that every knife chop, every utensil clank and clatter, is happening in time to the music. Sweet.
That’s what Baby Driver is like, except it’s quite a bit more violent and a whole lot sweeter, with percussive-licious music from the second half of the 20th century rather than the first.
The newest from writer/director Edgar Wright does for the heist/car chase genre what his 2004 film Shaun of the Dead did for zombie movies: It provides a knowing modern update, backed by a sterling rock collection by the likes of Queen, Blur, T-Rex, Young MC and, oddly but somehow appropriately, The Commodores’ Easy (Like Sunday Morning).
It all kicks off with Bellbottoms by the John Spencer Blues Explosion, to the tune of which Baby (Ansel Elgort, coming into his own after spinning his wheels in the Divergent trilogy) evades the police in a stolen, cherry-red
Impreza, at one point treating the Atlanta police helicopter unit to an impromptu game of three-car monte. That and some of the other stunts he pulls would have Wile E. Coyote scratching his head and holding up a sign saying: “I can’t believe this.”
But you don’t have to believe in Baby Driver to enjoy it, any more than you have to believe the cast of Stomp just happened to find all those brooms and garbage can lids on the stage. Baby is the getaway wheelman of choice for the smooth-talking mastermind Doc (Kevin Spacey), the one constant in a rotating cavalcade of freelance criminals that includes a Bonnie-and-Clyde type (Jon Hamm, Eiza González) and the bat-crazy Bats (Jamie Foxx), who claims he uses drugs to support a robbery habit.
So far, so fast, so furious. Baby is also looking after an aging foster father who keeps trying to convince him to go straight. But Doc has the kid in indentured servitude, with (of course) just one more big score needed to earn his freedom.
And then there’s Debora. British beauty Lily James (Downton Abbey, Cinderella) plays one of those diner waitresses who doesn’t exist anymore, working in one of those diners that doesn’t exist anymore either. Later, each falling for the other’s voice — his has more than a touch of 1950s Elvis twang, hers is a songbird unaware of its own euphony — they visit a laundromat where every dryer is filled with a single primary colour of clothing.
Wright delivers scenes like this that could almost pass for music videos, like the opening-credits montage in which background action and even passing graffiti reflect the lyrics of Harlem Shuffle, or gunfights that takes place to the same staccato rhythm as Tequila or Hocus Pocus. It’s as if the director made this movie to support a music habit.
And what a joyous habit for an audience to enable. Baby Driver has its moments of violence (these are professional bank robbers, after all), but it’s Baby’s story first and foremost, which gives it an overarching sense of innocence. This is a film in which one of the criminals has modified his HATE tattoo into HAT to help him find work: “Who doesn’t like hats?” (Imagine if Tupac had gone for HUGLIFE ...) In which the sound of a needle dropping on a platter of vinyl is more beautiful and finessed that many a movie’s entire score. And in which a gun salesman turns into one of those — wait, that guy is still alive? — celebrity cameos.
The result is easily one of the best rides of the summer. Better yet, in a year has already delivered Bon Cop 2, Fast 8, Cars 3 and Transformers 5, Baby Driver is that cinematic, automotive rarity — a new, one-off concept car. Take it for a spin.