Rock-n-Roll Baby On The Tree Tops
Fasten your seatbelts, Scratch that, put your earbuds in and prepare for a fast paced, gasoline filled frenzy of action packed car chases, shoot outs and the elegant charm of Edgar Wright’s beautiful blend of comedy and action.
Once again Wright marvels us while breaking all the cinematic rules with his ability to tell a stylistic story full of eccentric edits and idiosyncratic camera work. It’s not often we see directors break the rules of storytelling and create something so individualistic and fun to watch. Wright is known for using editing to support the comedic undertone of his films which is brilliant. Giving editing more of an active role in the storytelling is such an underutilized technique in film. His creative cinematography and visuals build a sense of excitement and respect in his films. All of Wright’s films are stylistic to the utmost capacity and Baby Driver is no different. It takes cinematography to new levels, it’s edited to creative perfection and the acting is pretty good outside of Ansel Elgort who plays Baby.
Jamie Foxx takes the spotlight on the acting side of the film while Elgort allows him. Foxx steals the show while the film pesteringly leaps from antagonist to antagonist in search for one that will stick. Abreast Elgort’s acting, his character didn’t have much depth or cogent motivation outside of owing a debt and wanting to leave town with a girl. Any girl at that because Wright forced a romantic plot on us that was incredibly disingenuous. It was the least convincing aspect of the film and the film is about career criminals holding up multiple banks in the same city and getting away with it. The love interest came out of thin air and for a moment I thought the girl was possibly in on the whole thing because of how happenstance their meeting and falling in love was. Wright also attempted to pull some semblance of a relationship between Baby and Kevin Spacey’s character at the end but in the beginning as well as throughout a majority of the film he seemed to be an antagonist. All the relationships and motivations lacked any candor which made the film appear to have sloppy writing and in my opinion, is the greatest issue with the film.
When the film was in cars, it was great, but as soon as they got out, it was terrible. The writing struggled to give the film any real emotional validation because of the lack of depth and sincerity the characters had toward each other and within themselves. Though there is one relationship that should have took prominence but was overshadowed, Baby and Joseph. Joseph is Baby’s foster father and they both shared an auditory disability which was a major theme in the film. The way they communicated and how they cared for each other was beautiful and touching. But it was unfortunately tossed to the side, literally, in lieu of a contrived romantic device.
The biggest aspect of the film was the music. This is what Wright sold to the studios and to the audience, stating “It’s kind’ve like a musical” (Deadline.com). When the audience enters the film, we appreciate what Wright does with the music and how he utilizes it, forms it into a trope and combines it with the story like he does with editing. But once we realize that the music Does. Not. Stop., it becomes troublesome. There may have been ten scenes throughout the course of the two hour film that did not have music in it. Baby has a special condition which I will leave out for potential spoilers but as a storyteller, you want the audience to be sympathetic to a character's condition not experience it. When the music does stop, a nagging sound continues, police sirens, high pitch tones etc. And we feel exactly how Baby feels when the music stops. The music and the tones become bothersome once we’re forty five minutes into the film and only a couple scenes of underwhelming dialogue have emerged.
Yet after all that said, Edgar Wright has still accomplished something amazing. Not only has he made a fun, entertaining blockbuster, I believe he has given way to new breed of action films. Wright proved that Marvel and Fast and the Furious aren’t the only films that live in the summer box office. He proved that style and art have a place in action films just as much as it does anywhere else. Thank you Edgar Wright for standing up to box office bullies and showing everyone that there is still some art in the world of cinema.
Recap
+Great Action
+Very Fun and Entertaining
-Bad Writing
-Music Trope Gets Played Out (Ha)
[3/5]
Edited by Robert Olarte