There is a moment
towards the end of Edgar Wright’s Baby
Driver when Jon Hamm’s Buddy, removes the music loving Baby’s ear buds and
tells him the songs over, but he still has to face the music. Musical puns are
dotted through this crime film set to music and like the one above, B movie
tongue-in-cheek is the aim, but they fall flat in a film that is, ironically,
tone deaf. Think of a film like Sin City (2005) that employs a similar approach to dialogue: self aware and borderline cheesy. Or the recent revival of Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), a show that is at times so slow and bizarre that it can isolate; they both create worlds that are built upon commitment and consistency to their style. So much so that you are drawn in and buy premises and language that elsewhere you would reject. Here, the world of Baby Driver is part cartoon, part ultra violent, part dream-like romanticism and none of them stick.
The opening meeting
between the bank robbers and car chase set Baby
Driver up as a film that not only has a very prominent soundtrack, but one
that actually moves to the music. As Baby strolls down the street his movements
and the movements of those around him, plus the ambient city sounds all move in
time to the song playing on his iPod. It’s fun and, like the whole film a great
achievement in editing, but sets Baby up as arrogant and unlikeable. You can’t
know and act like you’re cool. Otherwise the façade drops away. The following
car chase is the most exciting in the film and tells us why Baby acts
arrogantly; he has the skills to back it up. The remaining one hour forty-five
minutes never reach this level of excitement and interest again.
Baby’s early arrogance
is later confused by his knight in shining armour approach to being a criminal.
Some cringe worthy sign language scenes are designed to tell us how good he is
and the threat of violence that hangs over him explains why he stays in the
criminal world, but his lack of action towards trying to remedy the situation
he exclaims his despises is minimal. Yet, his action behind the wheel,
complicit in innocent death and destruction is nothing short of passionate. He’s
less of a character and more of a figure designed to look good in any
situation. This means that consistency is missing from this film that fails to
find what it wants to be.
Baby’s central dilemma
about involvement, having blood on his hands, is never explored in a film that
would rather tell us everything in expository dialogue that show us through
character development. The most interesting thing about Jon Hamm’s Buddy is
never revealed through his character, it is simply told to us in an example of
lazy story telling, and like the Tarantino aura is so desperately hangs to, Baby Driver is style over substance. The
rule here seems to mirror that of recent Tarantino; if it can be argued to be
cool, then it makes the cut. Unfortunately, the dialogue lacks bite and good
actors are reigned in by an attempt to homage the B movie and much of what they
say fails to convince. The action becomes less and less impressive and in the absence
of it, the story is revealed to be simple.
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Edgar Wright is a
great British director and his Three
Flavours Cornetto trilogy are wonderful insights into masculinity and small
town British life, woven with references to the cinema he loves without ever
losing their own sense of originality and individuality. Baby Driver lacks all of this.
