Baby Driver

ES: The chances are that you haven’t been in a high-speed car chase. That thrill seems enticing but I’m just too scared for the consequences. Like any other teen, I spent hours driving in my car, with the right music blaring and pretending that I’m going 90 mph on my way to save the day. Well, in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver (2017), he finds a way to fulfil your dreams of that high-speed chase without any of the consequences. This driving, action, drama movie takes us all through blood rushing drama of being a getaway driver for a group of thieves looking to continue their earning streak. Wright uses Ansel Elgort’s silence as a powerful tool to speak volumes and let us notice his surroundings. The intro captivates the audience with the actual words of The Harlem Shuffle is projected on the buildings of suburban Atlanta as Elgort goes on his coffee run seeming like a normal civilian when really, he is feeding the caffeine addiction to a bunch of criminals plotting their next heist. I almost want to call this movie a musical, because it doesn’t just use a great soundtrack. It pitches together classic albums that help to narrate the movie itself. Part of the plot is that the upbeat tempo of each song helps fuel Baby’s superior driving skills to evade the police. The music helps to tell Baby’s background and showcase his future. Typically, in an action-packed movie the draw is the cool weapons and the badassery on display. For Baby Driver, the action is found in Baby’s calm and silent demeanor when driving away burglars and murders with his incredible way around the wheel. In Baby Driver, Baby shifts multiple gears while he is trying to stay abiding by his deal with Doc, provide for his father figure Joseph, and get his love Deborah out of harm’s way and into a future with them safely away from anymore getaway driving. This isn’t a spinoff of Fast and Furious, it has enough action to get you revved up but like in the songs in the movie, there is much more meaning when you pay close attention.

IW: Baby Driver is one of the first movies I saw that I really appreciated from an artistic perspective. I think Edgar Wright is fucking brilliant and Baby Driver is just a testament to that. There is something so so SATISFYING about how he edited this movie and I could watch the opening scene with bell-bottoms over and over again and never tire of it. I will say this is not a movie I would be remotely interested in without it’s unique style. Actually, that’s a lie Jon Hamm with an undercut is VERY interesting to me regardless of the context. I digress, the story is fairly cut and dry and I think with any other director this movie would not have landed for me. It is Wright’s vision that sets this movie apart from any of the hundreds with somewhat similar plots and I guarantee we wouldn’t be talking about it if anyone else directed it. I know I should probably mention Ansel Elgort but he’s not that hot in this movie: there I said it. 

GV: This movie made me understand what the Oscar for sound mixing was meant for (even though it didn't win). I’m starting to see a trend in movies I like also having soundtracks I really like; this is one of them. I usually don't like action movies, but I think the action sequences being in sync with the music made it feel more like choreography rather than just people shooting guns each other. It's really a shame that Kev** Spa*** is in this because I would watch it a lot more if he wasn't. Lastly, there are no songs with Gabbie (or Gabriella) in them so I've got Deborah beat. At least I don’t know of any, so if someone could send me some that would be great. Harry Styles has Anna and One direction made Olivia and Diana and I honestly just feel really left out.