Baby Driver's soul shines under its cool veneer

Ansel Elgort in Baby Driver. Image courtesy Sony.

It's tempting to just say Baby Driver is cool and call it a day. It definitely looks very cool, highlighted by some great action sequences and a killer soundtrack to boot. But “cool” often implies a lack of substance underneath the glittery surface, and a lot more resides under the cool action sequences and, again, that soundtrack for Baby Driver. There’s plenty of wit and soul to make it worth seeking out and watch a few times to catch those little bits that are easy to miss. It may look cool, but this movie is a bit dorkier than it initially lets on.

It is the modus operandi writer/director Edgar Wright, an incredible visual director who can never quite hide his inherent nerdiness. Even a movie as action-packed and intense as Hot Fuzz will still take a few moments to acknowledge the director's love for a terrible action movie like Bad Boys II. He does bury it a little deeper with Baby Driver though, kicking off with a thrilling opening sequence featuring a heist and some epic driving pulled off by the eponymous Baby (Ansel Elgort). He's not too far off from the prototypical nameless leads in movies like Drive and The Driver, men who are brilliant behind the wheel but can't perform once the engine cools off until they find the right woman. They’re designed to be cool guys who can only say exactly the right thing.

Baby isn't too far off from those characters either. He's awkward out in society, drowning out the world around him by blasting music from one of his many iPods to drown out what handler Doc (Kevin Spacey) describes as severe tinnitus. And Baby does eventually find that special woman who could shake him out of his doldrums in the waitress Debora (Lily James), who sees the good in the complicated, quiet man. But Baby's also a tremendous dork, choreographing to the music blasting into his ears and lip syncing love songs to his deaf adopted father Joseph (CJ Jones). Wright uses his lead character's dorkiness to contrast to the collection of coked-out crooks around him (Jon Hamm, Eliza González and a deranged Jamie Foxx), but also to separate him from the pack of quiet stoic men who came before. Baby isn't an empty husk and doesn't need to search for his humanity; he has his father to guide him and his music to keep his soul at peace.

Baby's connection with humanity is tenuous at best. Wright uses Baby Driver's soundtrack in so many different ways – from atmosphere to cuts to pure entertainment – it's easy to miss how much Baby needs it to survive in the world around him. The motivation for the music is a bit of a bait and switch, with Doc's exposition masking the actual motivation for Baby's obsession with his iPod. The realization that Baby has always needed his music to hide from the world makes him a tragic figure, providing the sentiment needed to keep the audience on his side even as he dips into the darker side of his nature. He needs that music to remain a step away from the terrible crimes he's abetting and to keep him somewhat grounded.

Baby Driver gets some interesting-to-great performances from Foxx, Hamm, Elgort and especially Spacey, but the female roles are underwritten to a discomfiting degree. It's not a problem Wright has had in the past – Shaun of the Dead, The World's End and Scott Pilgrim all have at least one complex female character – which makes it surprising how little James is given to do besides serve as the object of Baby's affection. Giving Wright a pass for it being a trapping of the genre is a little too easy as well; he subverts enough of the genre in this movie to make it an unacceptable excuse.

Wright also has a higher bar than many directors thanks to more than a decade of sustained excellence. Even his worst film, Scott Pilgrim, is a terrific comic adaptation and the best video game movie. Baby Driver is a little off the beaten path compared with the rest of his work, especially with the reduced emphasis on comedy, but the movie still fits in with what Wright has done before. His films whose exteriors – whether they be comedic or aesthetic – cover the complications that rest right underneath, and the dorky heart of their creator.

Review: Four and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 113 minutes

Genre: Action

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Target audience: Anyone who is a fan of Edgar Wright and people down for some car movie madness.

Take the whole family?: This gets pretty bloody and violent, so it is best to leave the kids at home.

Theater or Netflix?: Definitely good or at least a matinee screening.

Is this movie funny?: It is, but not in the same way as the rest of Wright's filmography. The movie is a little darker than some of his previous works, less devoted to slapstick and watching Simon Pegg fall over fences. But Wright does maintain a few of his patented hidden sight gags to keep things fun, and there is a great reference to Monsters Inc. that pays off toward the end.

Watch this as well?: Anything from Wright is a slice of fried gold, highlighted by Spaced, Shaun of the Dead and the incomparable Hot Fuzz. There are also a decent number of similarities between this, The Driver and Drive to make for a great triple feature.