I have a deep admiration for Edgar Wright’s works, starting with Spaced and ending with the Cornetto Trilogy. Well specifically Hot Fuzz, but without the cone and chocolate coating, you would just have the cream, which may be the best part, but the accents truly send it into the stratosphere. So where does that leave Baby Driver? Certainly not in the rearview mirror, but after leaving the theater in mine, I couldn’t help wishing I was driving a beast of a car instead of my silent electric drive. It would have been the cherry paint on top of the imaginary bank heist getaway playing in my mind as I peeled out of the parking garage. Wright and crew put gas in my tank, but was it worth the trip?

Baby Driver isn’t as flawless as Hot Fuzz, but it definitely learns a lot from its pace, brand of dialog, foreshadowing, and character control. The film opens with an impending chase scene and probably some of the best music cues on screen anywhere, but unfortunately it’s all filtered through Ansel Elgort, playing Baby in the film. I say unfortunate, because while it’s fun and goofy, he doesn’t have the leading man appeal you can expect from your criminal hero driver. He delivers from beginning to end, with a complete performance that never wanes, but at the end of the day there is maybe a bit of spirit missing. He’s not quite a character or a caricature. Conversely, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Jon Hamm, and Eiza González deliver encompassing performances with hints of depth where necessary. They really bring their lines to life and find moments to surprise you. Even the minor characters really pop.

In the middle of the action, the film takes a detour to deploy an unnecessary love story. Well, it’s not unnecessary, in that the last half of the film kind of hinges on it, but it was 20 minutes of footage I would have been glad to loose. Lily James plays the most adorable waitress, despite appearing as though she never waits on anyone but Baby, and could have really lit a fire if she hadn’t simply been the convenient savior girlfriend. It wasn’t clear who this love story was for. It appears as that it exists just to add some leverage against Baby, of which many other avenues exist in the film organically, leaving the love angle feeling so artificial it just drags down the film.

For real though, you are in the seat to see the action, stunts, and amazingly dynamic editing that only Wright and his modern eye for pop culture bring to the screen. The heist crew has some of the more memorable and fun dialog since Pulp Fiction and the score is blended seamlessly with every move Baby and crew makes, it might as well be the shotgun in their right hand. While the love scenes can take a hike, everything else can ride shotgun. I’d even let them pick the tunes.

~* 8.5/10 *~