In March, Baby Driver premiered to ecstatic acclaim at the SXSW festival, so much so that the studio decided to move up the release date from the dead of August to late June. This didn't seem like such a shock. A fanboy audience went wild for a car chase movie from the director of Shaun of the Dead. Everyone could see that coming a mile away. The real surprise in all of this is that the film isn't some sort of crazy, cool Midnight Movie fun house joy ride. It's more silly than cool. It's more brutally violent than funny. And at the end of the day it's basically a semi-entertaining, superfluous, by the numbers crime picture. What Baby Driver really needed, of course, was Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.
After The World's End came out, it was pretty much cemented that Edgar Wright was truly one of the best writer/directors working today. We all pretty much knew that, though. His TV show Spaced was great, as was his first feature, the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead. After Hot Fuzz he decided to forge his own path and make something without his comedic sidekicks, Frost and Pegg. And while he did dazzle us with the style, kinetic editing and pizzazz in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, something felt missing. That would be the actors Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The trio gloriously returned for The World's End, the super-stylized, action comedy that dealt with male malaise, regret, heavy drinking, world domination, and robots. There's an obvious thread here. Edgar Wright is a great writer and director. He's one of the best filmmakers out there. Yet he only knocks it out of the park if he has his two buddies in his films. Hell, his short, "Don't," in Grindhouse was fucking hilarious. And, yep, Nick Frost was in it.
Baby Driver, written and directed by Wright, seems like an obvious home-run. It's a car chase film with a ton of music. Surely a director known for fast-paced editing and style and comedy and zaniness will make a masterpiece out of a movie starring fast cars, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, and Jamie Fox. Right? You would think. And while the film is certainly entertaining in spots, it also feels way too much like just another same-old, forgettable, mass produced Hollywood movie involving bank robbers that plays constantly on the USA network.
Ansel Elgort, forever known as the dead kid in The Fault in our Stars, plays "Baby," a fresh-faced kid who has expert driving skills. He uses these skills to drive getaway cars for bank robbers. But there's more! His hearing is messed up so he has to constantly listen to music. Now, obviously, for this film to work the music has to be outstanding. Wright does know his music. Who could forget the use of "White Lines" in Shaun of the Dead? But the soundtrack for Baby Driver is no Rushmore or Pulp Fiction soundtrack. There actually isn't a great song in the entire film. Which doesn't help, especially considering that the film is almost a musical. The characters sing along at certain moments. Even Ansel Elgort dances while he walks as if he's Fred Astaire or something. And if you think that's silly and odd, why is Ansel Elgort's foster father a deaf, old, black man in a wheelchair?
Wright does deliver a few entertaining chase sequences. And there are a few laughs (Mike Myers' Halloween mask gets the biggest laugh even though it's in the trailer). What starts as a pretty nifty spectacle soon devolves into a bloody mess, however, both realistically and figuratively. By the end, when we're down to a violent Hamlet-esque climax, I kept thinking that, man, this movie would have been a lot funnier, cooler, and better if Simon Pegg and Nick Frost were in it. And, sure, it's good to try new things and branch out but let's face it: Frost and Wright and Pegg can only make good movies when they're together for whatever reason. And forget the reaction Baby Driver had there. Can you imagine the SXSW fanboys seeing a Four Flavours Cornetto movie? They'd break the fucking internet. **1/2
