Review of Baby Driver (2017) by Tsrival — 27 Jun 2017

I can already tell that Baby Driver is going to be one of my favorite films of the year. I could feel this movie is special right from the start. Every actor plays their character well, and every character is well written and interesting.

Unlike other movies with cool rock n' roll soundtracks, where the songs are simply there and they sound cool, this movie is edited around each song. I held my breath through the first scene as I was blown away by the insane car chase and amazing editing. Every scene is cut to move with whatever song Baby is listening to, and every song fits the tone and pacing of the scene. Because of the editing and soundtrack, this movie is very stylized and fun to look at.

Baby Driver is not all style, though. Every character is well written and well directed. I found each criminal Baby had to work with interesting. They obviously had history and interesting back stories, but the movie did not slow itself down with needless exposition. In fact, very little is known about each criminal, but they are all unique and fun to watch. There is obviously chemistry between the actors, and this makes the comedy and drama land really well.

However, there were some scenes that were not perfect. The first is when Baby and company must visit "The Butcher," who is their arms dealer. The guy talks about his weapons like they are cuts of meat, calling one gun bacon, another prime rib, etc. This threw me out of the movie since it seemed unrealistic and strange to me. John Wick 2 had a similar scene, which was equally confusing. While to someone who is not accustomed to firearms this dialogue might sound cool, to me it doesn't make sense why a seasoned criminal would not just call a gun by its name. Similarly, why would John Wick ask for something more "robust," when he could just ask for a 12 gauge shotgun, or an AK, or whatever he wants. I had similar thoughts during Baby Driver's arms dealer scene. Fortunately this was a short part of the movie, so it didn't really effect my rating too much.

One more thing that bugged me is that Baby's girlfriend decides to join Baby after discovering that he is a criminal. She never really questions him. Realistically, if I had been with a guy for a week, and then found out he was a wanted criminal being chased by the law and several angry bank robbers, I would get as far away from him as possible. I think this is my biggest gripe concerning the movie, but it is still such a small part of the movie that it doesn't effect my score by much.

Overall this is an amazing film. I don't want to give away too much, so I will leave this review here. I give it a 95%. It had a few flaws, but honestly I couldn't think of anything I didn't like about the movie when I was coming out of the theatre. I really had to let it seep for a few hours before I could think of the flaws. I would definitely recommend seeing this over any other new releases. Instead of wasting your ticket on Transformers, go see Baby Driver.