A modern classic? A musical masterpiece? Film of the year?  Guest writer Tom Gane reviews Baby Driver for Beview, following a special screening at the BFI Southbank with Director Edgar Wright. 

Within the first few bars of a great song, you normally feel something. Something largely indeterminable that seems to grip you. It could be a standard chord progression and an oft used melody, but something about it starts to hit home and hold you. This same feeling immediately takes hold during the opening scene of Baby Driver.

Baby (Ansel Elgort) sits in a bright red Subaru and hits play on Bellbottoms by Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (the song that originally inspired Edgar Wright’s idea for the film more than 20 years ago) whilst his partners Buddy (Jon Hamm), Darling (Eliza González) and Griff (Jon Bernthal) jump out to rob a bank. Baby dances in the car, drums on the steering wheel and moves the windscreen wipers in time with the music. A police car slowly drifts by and behind his red sunglasses we see Baby taking note. When the gang frantically jump back in the car Baby reverses away and spins the car away from the cops into one of most visually satisfying car chases of recent years, with gear shifts timed with the music and the car literally dancing around obstacles.

It’s a riotous introduction that suspends disbelief and pulls you into Edgar Wright’s imagination and the worlds of Driver, The Blues Brothers and Vanishing Point. These classic films were part of Edgar Wright’s ‘Car Car Land’ series, the films that inspired Baby Driver, at the BFI Southbank, and the tropes of the genre are loving played with by Edgar Wright throughout the film.

Baby is the impossibly skilled getaway driver who is always wearing sunglasses and listening to music on a variety of iPods with different music for different moods (in the Q&A following the film Edgar Wright clarified the sunglasses and iPods came from the assumption that if you stole cars for a living, these are the items you would have in abundance). The need for the music is to drown out Baby’s tinnitus (a “hum in the drum”), which he sustained in a car crash that killed his parents when he was a child. Baby’s love of music and rhythm fuels his superhuman ability, he needs the right song before he can drive. Baby is indebted to Doc, the crime boss behind a series of increasingly daring Atlanta bank robberies, made masterfully terrifying, intimidating and understated by Kevin Spacey. Baby is driving for Doc to repay his debt and after the initial chase has one more job (because of course) before he’s free.

Baby meets and falls for Deborah (Lily James), a beautiful waitress with a soft southern drawl and angelic voice that reminds Baby of his mother. The chemistry between James and Elgort means that even though their romance is brief, it’s also believable (this is helped by the fact Elgort’s cool charm as Baby is infectious, whilst I was ready to drive off into the sunset with Deborah after her first scene). After his final job Baby thinks he’s out and can use the cash to fund a road trip (“in a car we can’t afford and with a plan we don’t have”) with Deborah, but is informed by Doc that he’s still in, it’s just now Doc won’t take most of his cut to repay the debt.

Throughout the film the cost of these jobs becomes more and more apparent. In the initial getaway we barely see what occurs inside the bank, just Baby enjoying the adrenaline rush of driving. Each subsequent heist however shows the impact on normal people. A bloodied security guard lying on the ground, a terrified bank teller, a screaming mother desperately clutching her baby. Most of this carnage is initiated by Jamie Foxx’s chaotic Bats, who repeatedly uses lines Edgar Wright lifted from interviews with real bank robbers, and as the violence increases the joyful suspension of disbelief of the earlier scenes begins to be eroded and viewers find it harder and harder to wish for the gang to escape scot-free.

The films slows slightly in its middle half as the ruminations and planning of the final job take place and Baby considers what the people he drives are capable of. This is one of the films few weaker points, although it is made more noticeable by how incredible and fast-paced the first hour is. However the final chase and showdown is a dark, loud and graphic reward for the slower moments. One other criticism is the characters sometimes border on caricatures, although Hamm, Foxx and Spacey are always enjoyable and those who love the style of cinema Edgar is playing with will enjoy the tribute to the genre. Gonzalez and James’ characters are also largely foils for Hamm and Elgort respectively, and whilst both have agency and take violent action (Gonzalez gleefully and James when required), it’s a shame the two main female characters are love interests.

These issues are largely dwarfed however by the sheer fun and creativity of the film. Edgar Wright has created the first action/car chase musical and every scene is brought to life with music. In the Q&A Wright described how Ryan Heffington (who choreographed Sia’s Chandelier video) was involved with every scene to add an element of rhythm, and that he worked with stunt coordinator Darrin Prescott to make the chases and fights feel like dances (a battle with the cops to the tune of Tequila is particularly fantastic). The soundtrack is thrilling and diverse but doesn’t feel disjointed, with composer Steven Price blending between songs with his own compositions to prevent any violent key chances, and Wright also spoke of how he wouldn’t write a scene until he had decided on a song. Musicians such as Big Boi, Killer Mike, Flea and Sky Ferreira also feature in the film as a nice touch.

Baby Driver also brings the city of Atlanta to life. The decision to film there was out of Wright’s hands, but when the choice was made he decided to switch the setting to Atlanta from L.A. and set about learning as much as possible about the new city. He described the job of the location manager as “herculean” and how all of the scenes on Atlanta’s iconic freeway were actually filmed there, with a police motorcade creating a “bubble” as the actors, and Edgar himself strapped to the side of the rig, hurtled down the motorway at 80mph. So whenever Jamie Foxx or Jon Hamm is thrown to the side of the car and a brief look of fear flashes across their face, it’s genuine. This way of filming and setting the film in Atlanta gives Baby Driver a realism that allows you to completely get lost in the film and enjoy the more ludicrous and over the top moments.

Baby Driver is in cinemas on 28th June.