[Review] Baby Driver

Hello!

This time it’s a review of Baby Driver!

The director here is Edgar Wright.

He’s got loads of them — Shaun of the Dead, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Paul, Hot Fuzz, The World’s End, Ant-Man, and on and on!!!

Every one of them is a comedy with plenty of laughs in it. Love this director. Love all of the films above!! Except The World’s End, which I haven’t actually seen lol The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a hidden gem too — seriously recommended if you like Guardians of the Galaxy! Would love to write about Hot Fuzz and Ant-Man someday as well. Gloriously stupid, and packed with laughs!!

And the songs in the film were so good!!!!

Right then — let’s work through a load of trailers, bring the film back to mind, and get into the impressions!

An idea years in the making

The track playing early on is “Unsquare Dance”!

A tune that ticks along in tiny, choppy beats. And in that scene Baby can’t help playing along on the piano. Doc’s tap-tap-tap lands right on it — lovely touch.

Next comes the opening scene.

Went hunting on YouTube and found the opening section uploaded on its own!

Here it is.

The cinema programme mentioned this too — setting the film in Atlanta rather than New York or Chicago is pretty unusual. Apparently it came down to tax reasons.

They could only close off a few blocks at a time, so the shoot was done in small pieces.

The cars were chosen by asking actual robbers which models get used most.

That red car in the first job is a Subaru WRX. Edgar Wright had apparently decided it had to be that car, no arguments.

And he’d been building this scene in his head for a very long time.

The spark for the whole film was “Bellbottoms” by Jon Spencer, which he heard at 21. Then in 2002 he was handed the music video for Mint Royale’s “Blue Song,” and what came out was a promo about a man driving a getaway car with music in his ears.

Watching it now, it’s remarkably similar.

Put it all together and the shape of this film was clearly there long before it got made.

Baby, our lead

He’s got that sweet, boyish face, and in the film he reads as short — but he’s actually 191cm. That surprised me.

He’s already in on the crime from his very first appearance. The look is shades and earbuds, and he barely says a word. Total see-no-evil, speak-no-evil, hear-no-evil.

It’s the trauma of that car crash years ago that shut him away inside himself. Music is his pacifier — put it on and he can breathe again. Probably comes from his mother, who was a singer.

But once he meets Debora he has someone to listen with, and he looks genuinely happy. He shares music with his Black foster father as well. For Baby, listening to music alongside someone must be an enormously fulfilling thing.

All those music players he owns weren’t bought either — they’re the ones that happened to be inside the cars he stole.

That purple classic car the older lady was driving was very cool. Normally, if your car got stolen you’d be furious, and even if the thief handed your bag back you wouldn’t give testimony that helps him. So her saying “Baby seemed like a good person” felt like a mother shielding him.

The banana bits that keep turning up are a reference to the troll from Dora the Explorer lol

Where “there’s a banana in my ear” comes from — Tanetan

And there’s a split-second appearance from the great Fight Club too.

Films stuffed with little references like this never miss~

Honestly, wonderful.

About Doc

Doc is played by Kevin Spacey. He’s best known as John Doe, the villain of Se7en. He also won Best Supporting Actor for The Usual Suspects.

The car Doc drives is a Mercedes-Benz S550, a proper luxury car. Crime money, presumably. He’s got a cheeky nephew, but his private life never gets opened up. Room for the imagination to run lol A spin-off about his younger days would be great. Did he elope with someone once?

Never expected Doc to be the one who saves Baby!!

Early on you see him pulling Baby into job after job, and halfway through he drags a retired Baby back in again. A proper monster, I thought — maybe this guy is the final boss. And then he sees Baby with a girlfriend, remembers his own past, and puts his life on the line for him. Did not see that coming!!

That was a seriously cool grown-up!

Bats is terrifying

Bats is played by Jamie Foxx, who — get this — won Best Actor for Ray. An absolute heavyweight!!! More recently he was Electro in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.

His performance here is the best!! Frightening beyond words. That tension of never knowing when someone is about to get killed. The scene in the restaurant where he starts clapping — my heart properly jumped there.

You’re sitting safely in a cinema and still feel like you’re about to be attacked. Enormous presence!! And the way he dies is a little bit Final Destination, which was funny lol

That blood-everywhere kind of death brings Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead straight to mind lol The director’s stamp is all over it.

Bats’s signature line!!

“Te-qui-la~”

The heroine / About Debora

Debora, the heroine of the film.

There were a few songs in there going “Debora” / “zebra.”

For a Baby with no friends, that must have been a thrilling way to meet somebody.

She’s played by Lily James, who led the live-action Cinderella.

Here she’s got a perm and comes across as a very of-the-moment kind of girl.

Suspended sentence or not, he still did a few years inside, and she waited the entire time. Far too devoted lol

You could see a mile off that the daydream scene in the middle would pay off in the final kiss in front of the car — but the classic playbook really is a wonderful thing.

Buddy, the perfect villain

He’s played by Jon Hamm!

Ahhhh — what an effortlessly cool presence!! He looked fantastic!!

When he’s listening to music with Baby he seems like such a nice guy!

I half thought he’d end up helping at the end. And then Darling, his partner, played by Eiza González, gets killed, and he flips into full rage mode.

Even before that, the moment he finds out Baby has been recording everyone’s voices, he turns on a dime and starts interrogating him. Glimpses of the frightening man underneath.

The outlaw texture around all this comes through so well. In the end a bad man is a bad man, maybe?

Don’t let the contrast fool you. Just because someone rotten does one good thing, letting your guard down there might not be such a smart idea.

Also interesting that Buddy and Baby share the same thing — both of them are acting for the sake of one woman.

The biggest scene of the lot!!

The scene set to Focus’s “Hocus Pocus” fits the track so perfectly it gets the blood going!!! The gunshots landing on the beat, the police siren sitting on the offbeat, the in-store background music linking up with the music running under the scene — a scene built with insane precision!!!!!!

Ended up buying the soundtrack on the spot!! lol

Buddy, so cool

Mmmmm——— so cool!!!

Dropping Queen’s “Brighton Rock” in there is just too stylish for words~~~~

Been thinking — Buddy’s refusal to stay down, and the way he goes out, feel a lot like Hans Gruber in Die Hard lol

Bought the soundtrack too!!