BABY DRIVER (2017) aka, the Edgar Wright/Ansel Elgort/Kevin Spacey/Jamie Foxx pop-song-and-car-chase Walter Hill homage(?)

http://68.media.tumblr.com/982d0a4f3a0142aa1270df0f16181865/tumblr_n6k7a8Qwru1sskn9qo2_250.gif

I liked some of this, I didn't like some of this, I loved part of it, I hated part of it. So I guess that makes it ... a wash?

it makes it a regular movie

Well, it feels more inessential than average, let's put it that way. A diversion, little more than that. I think I would have preferred a PG-13 rating and full musical, minus bloody violence, which felt out of place, given the tone.

That Hollywood can still produce diversions in the years before the sea rise deluge is enough.

You know what I remembered as I was watching it? That better than it should have been Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Michael Shannon bike messenger vs. cop comic thriller "Premium Rush."

the trailer for this made it look so good, but it was so lame. the script sucked, the kevin spacey twist at the end was totally unbelievable and out of place, the romance was lame (hmm yes let's drag this poor woman who you've hung out with exactly twice into your drama without asking her first), the choreography was dumb. the whole thing was just so... try-hard. it was like the director watched john wick and thought he'd try making a super slick, stylish, effortless crime caper too but ended up failing miserably.

?? what 'twist'?

The thing where we've been set-up all movie to believe one thing and another thing happens - the technical name for that is a twist.

Drops coffee mug referentially

this is one of those uncanny valley films that seemed so totally geared towards my own tastes and sensibilities (especially some of the music choices - 'Egyptian Reggae' and Blur's 'Intermission' were staples on any mixtape I made back in the days when I used to make mixtapes), that I'm not sure how much I did enjoy it. I definitely thought it was fun and a well-made film, but except for the fact driving is the most anxiety-inducing thing I have to regularly do, it's like the film of me, and I don't know how much I like that.

Was quite pleased they gave Focus - "Hocus Pocus" a good spot.

― Robert Adam Gilmour, Wednesday, July 19, 2017 3:50 PM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This one too. I liked how the gunshots went in time with the music

I think if I have any real criticism of this film is that it could have been just a little bit funnier. The funny bits were really really funny though.

The thing where we've been set-up all movie to believe one thing and another thing happens - the technical name for that is a twist.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, July 24, 2017 3:04 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, smartass, but I don't recall anything like that happening in this movie

Guys..

The music in a film is not a measure of the film

I'm sorry that's just how I feel.

at the same time let's not kid ourselves about this film being much more than an excuse to have a bunch of cool tunes set to car chases with a fairly standard plot draped on top.

I've noticed a lot of fatal car accidents happen in movies when people don't know how to drive and argue with their S.O.s at the same time

It's actually a shit plot.

Wright hasn't written a good plot since at best Hot Fuzz and tbh that was also over obsessed with symmetric wank payoff in lieu of plot

at the same time let's not kid ourselves about this film being much more than an excuse to have a bunch of cool tunes set to car chases with a fairly standard plot draped on top.

― Shat Parp (dog latin), Monday, July 24, 2017

i.e. most chase movies starring Steve McQueen?

Plot gets in the way of this one

not seen many of his films. TGE obvs. Not even sure I've seen Bullitt.

The whole 'this guy listens to headphones while driving fast cars' thing is such a naff gimmick that the film quasi-lampshades it several times. If it wasn't pulled off with: A. actually decent music picks; B. quality casting; C. great editing, it would fall right through. You could say pretty much the same thing about Drive, except I loathed Drive and I enjoyed this a fair bit.

xp

re: Hot Fuzz and "symmetric wank payoff", I believe the term you're looking for is "jokes"

That's why I said I wish this was PG-13 and less violent, that it tried harder to be funnier than it tried to be a convincing action movie. Which it wasn't.

Neanderthal - sorry for being a smartass, I was trying to dance around it, but it appears under a

SPOIIIIILLLLLLEEEERRRR

in the tenth post here, so: Doc tells Baby that he'll let him go after he pays off his debt, which we're primed to believe will never happen, and indeed when Baby's debt is paid off, Doc doesn't let him go. And then in a surprising twist, he does - and more!

https://filmability.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/ansel_elgort_en_baby_driver_1-imgo.gif

in the tenth post here, so: Doc tells Baby that he'll let him go after he pays off his debt, which we're primed to believe will never happen, and indeed when Baby's debt is paid off, Doc doesn't let him go. And then in a surprising twist, he does - and more!

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, July 24, 2017 2:31 PM (forty-eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that didn't feel like a twist so much as a strange bit of nonsense. Unless of course he really was in love with Baby and on seeing Debora, he just thought 'screw it' and let him go?

when he says "I was in love once" or whatever he throws Baby a rueful look. Also, Spacey really digs calling him Baby.

yeah that's not really a twist because Doc never actually said he wouldn't have to do more jobs after he was paid up, that's how Baby interpreted it. but when Baby was confirming that he'd be out after the next job, Doc was careful with his words, he corrected Baby with something like "we'll be straight" which implied to me 'you won't owe me more money but I didn't say no more jobs'.

The twists were

Spacey not having double-crossed everybody. This was the clear setup, and while Wright might have been delighted to sell the audience this dummy he focused so much on what he wasn't going to do that what he ended up doing was sloppy, careless, messy.

Spacey taking pity on baby, lame move completely inconsistent with character so far and rendered an already lazily drawn and performed character even less interesting

Madman being the nutter out to kill baby

This movie had serious coherency issues and delighted in them.

Hope everyone involved dies, actually

I'm sure that some of the cops who got killed in Bats' shoot out turned up again in a later scene towards the end. Didn't understand that.

Xpost again, not twists, inconsistent plot points maybe but w/e.

I'm surprised people were saying this was like a nostalgia film or a 90s-retro film. Didn't feel particularly 90s to me?

Beyond iPods, Beck references, people making phone calls on landlines? Let alone all the post Tarantino winky riffs on violent action movies?

This owes nothing to Tarantino.

I would grab that emergency brake, spin out, then quickly back away from the word "nothing."

Didn't Wright write this movie way back when? Like 20 years ago? I assume that accounted for all the off-kilter references, like to Jon Spencer and Midnite Vultures-era Beck.

Anyway, if it was first devised 22 years ago, as Wright has claimed, that brings us back to 1995, which is peak post Pulp Fiction. Any action movie devised then was infused with Tarantino juice.

iPods didn't first come out til 2001 and a few seconds of someone making a call on a landline doesn't really scream NINETIES, or even particularly retro to me.
Guess the only bit that had me was the two stoner kids listening to Young MC.
The music seemed to be from all eras on there (lots of 70s stuff, so if 90s = 70s retro then fair enough). Didn't think it was particularly Tarantino-esque either, or at least no more so than any other action film that has absorbed Tarantino from the vernacular of action movies.

Yeah, I mean, that's fair. It's pretty movieland PoMo in its own right. But it definitely has the stylized too-cool-for-school crime violence, colorful criminals and romance thing going on, a la something like True Romance. All the diner stuff I kept thinking of Pulp Fiction, yeah, for surface reasons, but still.

BTW, lol at me that I can't even remember when iPods were introduced, and I was there!

Where were you picking up on Spacey double-crossing everyone, Darragh? That he always has new crews, or that he always has new crews apart from this one time? It passed me by but I can see the argument.

I think the crews was a ref to specifically the makeup of each one.

But

And I may not bother to remember detail or order correctly u understand

Foxx shoots up cops at weapons deal. Which may or may not have been a setup. We might not be meant to know either way but it had the air of stink before he acted. No explanation of why spacey wouldn't have dropped a hint as to the fact they'd be dirty cops which would seem cogent.

Dude weaponed up and ready to ambush the cru at the van holdup. Again, the direction, detail and the long looks we're given of this guy in advance of him turning into a have a go hero are all redolent of a plot thread that......goes nowhere? Never see him again.

Spacey's character has no thread we can follow that fits anything but a meta stooge wildly swinging the plot from one direction to the next, which I'm sure I've seen work when done well.

Foolishness to claim that my feeling that this was not done well validates or invalidates the unfollowed links of plot above, but what can I say? Didn't work for me at all once the bad guys became good guys and the good guys became bad guys and they all did the most stupid things possible in order to give us a messy conclusion after respective lifetimes spent as successful career criminals and fifty odd minutes of a pretty but pretty dumb driver dude ordering food in a diner.

I watched the trailer for this. Is the whole thing full of bad "Southern" accents like Lily James'?

that's all it is. just people doing bad southern accents at each other for an hour and a half

Great, I'm sold!

Any particular reason for thanks to Tarantino in the credits to Baby Driver?

— Paul (@reev0) June 27, 2017

He gave me car chase advice, general support and one cool script idea.

— edgarwright (@edgarwright) June 27, 2017

lol I guess it owes something to Tarantino

good god, I loved this movie but didn't give it much thought after I saw it. why so much hand-wringing? it was fun. i loved that he made tape collages. some cool music choices. short, fun, original script. GREAT! end of discussion...