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★★★★☆
19 June 2017
A movie review of BABY DRIVER. |
“In this business, the moment you catch feelings is the moment you catch a bullet,” Bats (Jamie Foxx)
BABY DRIVER is full of these premonitions, from warnings to dreams, and an audience weaned on cinema is right to be wary. Are they setting up false expectations, or are they merely prepping us for future plot points? One can’t help feel these asides are unnecessary. There is a difference between subtle allusion, and outright explanations. These moments do not however derail the movie. Better than SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but not in the same league as SCOTT PILGRIM, director Edgar Wright’s latest is Tarantino-esque. Shades of TRUE ROMANCE and DEATH PROOF add tension to his latest, which has been absent from his previous jocular projects. BABY DRIVER might have been anodyne summer fare, but the swearing and violence adds peril: Will the lead make it out alive?
BABY DRIVER is full of these premonitions, from warnings to dreams, and an audience weaned on cinema is right to be wary. Are they setting up false expectations, or are they merely prepping us for future plot points? One can’t help feel these asides are unnecessary. There is a difference between subtle allusion, and outright explanations. These moments do not however derail the movie. Better than SHAUN OF THE DEAD, but not in the same league as SCOTT PILGRIM, director Edgar Wright’s latest is Tarantino-esque. Shades of TRUE ROMANCE and DEATH PROOF add tension to his latest, which has been absent from his previous jocular projects. BABY DRIVER might have been anodyne summer fare, but the swearing and violence adds peril: Will the lead make it out alive?
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Like RESERVOIR DOGS, all the criminals push their weight around to prove they are the alpha. The actual alpha is seemingly the most gentle, in stark otherness to the bolshy. These armed robbers are perturbed by the silence of Baby (Ansel Elgort). These hardened, violent perps can’t fathom him. Baby intimidates them. Still waters run deep. Their nervous energy is in contrast to his calm, demonstrating potentially a personality of steel. Baby refuses to flinch when Griff (Jon Bernthal) pretends to punch. A similar scene occurs in TV show DEXTER, where the anti-hero is equally unnerved at such a threat.
Leader and brains of the Atlanta, Georgia, thievery operations is Doc (Kevin Spacey). He gives off the vibe of being both droll and the ability to perform great cruelty. (In the film, his nephew Samm (Brogan Hall), is a laugh-out-loud 8-year old criminal mastermind in the offing.) Like all the players, they are not completely what they initially appear. This alone is what pushes BABY DRIVER in the direction of excellence. Conveying layers of characterisation takes real skill, both in terms of writing and acting. The world created is almost a JOHN WICK-esque type of illegal subculture living in parallel to the rest of us. Intimidating, almost all reveal a darker personality.
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The mantra of Bats (Jamie Foxx on top form), before heading into the fray, is repeating over and over: That which he is about to steal belongs to him. A fascinating pre-game ritual revealing economically and efficiently how his mind justifies. So quick to violence, Bats will kill just to shoplift chewing gum. The character reminds a little of Waingro in HEAT, bar the fact he is far more intelligent. (Talking of HEAT, the action sequences rely too heavily on fast editing rather than the muscular dynamic choreography of director Michael Mann’s work. This is a step back from SCOTT PILGRIM.) Bats’ monologue, analysing Buddy (Jon Hamm), is maybe Edgar Wright’s most accomplished dialogue.
“He’s a good kid, and a devil behind the wheel,” Doc. Significant lengths are spent by the film to show Baby has been coerced into this charismatic but compunction-less fraternity/sorority. As he is forced, the detritus does not touch him. (Baby has already been wounded to his core.) Hope is arguably what restrains us from lashing out.
The best films leave you with an emotional sucker punch. All films live and die by their endings. One is not completely sold on BABY DRIVER’s. (Contrast mesmerising South Korean movie, HWAYI: A MONSTER BOY.)
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