BABY DRIVER (2017) ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Edgar Wright
Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm,
Jon Bernthal, Eiza Gonzalez, Lily James,
Flea, Jamie Foxx, Hal Whiteside, Walter Hill
A getaway driver with chronic tinnitus does one last job to pay off an old debt, but finds that walking away from the game is not so easy. This is Edgar Wright's chance to do a little riff on the kinds of wise-guy crime pieces Scorsese and Tarantino and Guy Ritchie specialize in. (There's a point-blank reference to "GoodFellas" that couldn't be more obvious.) What's missing is the fanboy wit that makes Wright's best movies such a kick. Ansel Elgort, who plays the lead, has a real gift for movement - an exceptionally long take in which he dances through the streets of the city could stand as a film on its own - but beyond that, he hasn't got much in the way of charisma. There might be a point to that, but it's in contrast to Jon Hamm, who plays one of the bank robbers and has lots of charisma. He's the one you'd like to be seeing more of. Kevin Spacey, whose fall from grace was just around the corner, plays the ruthless gangster boss, a role he could probably knock off in his sleep. There's an abrupt shift in his character's behavior in the last reel that helps wrap up the story but doesn't make a whole lot of sense. The car chases, the real reason for a movie like this to exist, are all quick cuts and chaos. Good luck trying to figure out what's going on in them. Maybe there should be a rule in Hollywood that anybody making a foot-to-the-floor car-chase movie has to watch "Bullitt" and "Ronin" a few times first, and prove that they've learned something in the process.
