In Baby Driver, the newest film from writer/director Edgar Wright, a getaway driver played by talented newcomer Ansel Elgort, who goes by Baby, desperately tries to get out of his relationship with a crime boss (Kevin Spacey).

The film starts with a clever, well-directed introduction to our protagonist, featuring a typical morning for him getting coffee and whatnot, all expertly filmed with a nice tracking shot. One important takeaway from this scene – Baby is a genuinely cool guy.

We then get into a well-shot and well-choreographed action sequence which Wright impressively crafted using nothing but practical effects. It’s a fun scene for the audience. But Baby hopes it will be his second-to-last job ever.

We soon learn that Baby has a sad backstory involving his parents, one that also led to him developing a condition that requires him to constantly listen to music to drown out the noise in his head. Wright makes good use of this unique character trait by adding a good score that plays over pretty much every second of the film.

Another smart touch Wright adds to the movie is what appears to be an intention for the film to either take place in or at least have the feel of taking place in the 2000s decade. I can only assume he did this to add a level of timelessness to the film, or perhaps to contribute to society’s obsession with nostalgia.

Baby later meets a charming love interest named Deborah (Lily James), who doesn’t have much going on in her life other than a likely low-paying waitress job that she doesn’t seem to enjoy. The two of them have pleasant chemistry. And their romance actually adds to the plot and to Baby’s character development.

We get an entertaining, sometimes funny, and well-acted film overall. It doesn’t quite reach the highs I hoped. The story definitely felt a little basic and by the numbers at times. Although the ending went in a couple of unexpected directions, I’ll give it that.

And when all is said and done, it’s a very good movie overall, and one of the best I’ve seen so far this year. I give it an 8 out of 10.

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This entry was posted on July 15, 2017 at 4:57 pm and is filed under Movie Review. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

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