"...Sheer Heart Attack..."
Opening night Friday, 30 June 2017 and I've
just come from the cinema where Edgar Wright's "Baby Driver"
absolutely rocked the audience. With so much sub-standard mega-blockbuster cack
out there (excepting the fab "Wonder Woman" of course) and more
tiresome sequels like Spiderman-Homecoming trying to claw our hard-earned - I
haven't seen a movie this 'cool' since "Out Of Sight" with George
Clooney and Jennifer Lopez electric in their chemistry.
The incredibly smart use of known and unknown
music from Carla Thomas 60ts Stax through to 90ts Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
has been commented on in every review and rightly so. The opening sequence
alone where the lyrics to Bob & Earl's Island Records groove "Harlem
Shuffle" playing on his iPod appear in small and subtle ways as he walks
to his rendezvous carrying four cartons of coffee is utterly brilliant –
turning a credits-sequence into a happening instead of being something that's
merely functionary.
There's a pair of tire-squealing four-by-fours
doing a duet-battle-sequence in a tiered car park played out to Queen's
guitar-wild "Brighton Rock" (the opening song on their 1973 classic
album "Sheer Heart Attack") that had many gasping and grinning - a running
sequence to "Hocus Pocus" by Focus that will quicken even the slowest
heart rate and a gun battle to "Tequila" by The Champs. There's as
many as 30 funky and groovy tunes used - T. Rex, Jonathan Richman, Beck, Golden
Earring, The Detroit Emeralds and The Commodores to name but a few. And even
though I knew almost all of the songs - others will probably not. But that
won't matter a jot - you'll be enjoying the high-speed chases and the sheer
eat-em-up Tarantino-esque pace of it all too much to even notice.
The cast is perfectly balanced and you have to
say that all of them excel. Jamie Fox and Jon Hamm as the hardened
robbers/psychos Bats and Buddy have both surely gotten their best parts in
years in this film. Kevin Spacey adds the overseeing-mastermind gravitas as the
ruthless Doc who has Baby by the emotional short and curlies - while CJ Jones
is both touching and funny as the deaf old man Joseph that Baby takes care of
at night - a good soul who only wants Baby to be safe and go straight. In what
is surely a breakout part Eiza Gonzalez is ravishing as Jon Hamm's squeeze
Darling – a super sexy party-siren who isn't demure with a bra or a gun (and
God help you if you dis her man). And capping it off is the sheer cinematic
gorgeousness of Lily James as the waitress Debora who captivates Baby from the
moment he lays eyes on her – a sweet but slightly innocent and vulnerable girl
who faces increasing personal hazard because of her new boyfriend's escalating
high-risk jobs. He may be 'cool' but should she stick with him for that 2 a.m.
rendezvous...
There are believable unfolding back-stories –
really witty dialogue scenes – and a mix-tape sequence that will have you smile
at its street cleverness. Hell you even have an old lady who’s been car-jacked
that gets her handbag and purse back as the bullets fly and the Michelin rubber
burns...
And throughout it all "The Fault In Our
Stars" Ansel Elgort manages to pull off that elusive cool-yet-funny shtick
that's so hard to get right as the principal character 'Baby Driver' (the film
and character takes its name from a song on Simon & Garfunkel's 1970 LP
masterpiece "Bridge Over Troubled Water"). Baby is a
faster-than-a-bullet getaway driver for Kevin Spacey's heists - a kid that will
only move to the rhythms of music - his white iPod-leads permanently rammed
into his eardrums. Even when Baby's not driving like a reincarnated James Hunt
- he walks around all day grooving to tunes to drown out a humming that he
sustained in a family accident as a child (a condition called tinnitus). Until
one day Baby spots something genuinely exciting in a retro diner - Lily James -
a person actually worth uttering words to - a possible future with a smile and
a soul as restless as his...
A mash-up of 'Fast & Furious' meets 'Heat'
meets 'Out Of Sight' meets 'Training Day' meets 'Ocean's Eleven' – 2017's
"Baby Driver" comes at you with attitude, pizazz and the sheer
hutzpah of ten Jason Bourne movies.
Fantastic popcorn entertainment and well done
to Writer/Director Edgar Wright and all involved...
