Movie Review: Baby Driver

It's an action flick.  It's a "gotta keep working to pay off The Man, but then I'm outa here" story.  It's part Reservoir Dogs.  It's part Romeo & Juliette.  There's a dual-weilding Laura Croft character.  It's part won't-that-villan-ever-die jump-scare horror flick.  It's got Blind Al from Deadpool, except here she's morphed into a deaf man.  It's got Jamie Fox playing The Joker, except here he's just called "Bats."  (Maybe that one was an unintentional sideways reference to another fictional story line.  Interesting neck tattoos though.)  And of course there's the criminal mastermind.  With all that going on, it's never boring, but it never exactly gels either.

Then there's the music, which is a whole story line and effectively a character unto itself.  Maybe the best part, even over the car chases.  It's more than the rhythm and beat here, it's the timing chain for the movie's engine.  If you know a song, it foreshadows that something's ahead – not that you'll have any idea of what it may be, because there are surprises around every corner.

For all that weird Bass-o-Matic blend of ingredients, the acting is uniformly top-notch and the car chase sequences make it worth the watch.  It pumps the excitement and pulls at the heartstrings all at once.  It does keep your attention, and was even kind of fun.  Two and a Half Stars.  Go see it on the big screen, enjoy, and then move on.

I won't buy the video when it comes out, but the soundtrack album... got to pick up a copy of that.