I Watch Films: Baby Driver

We’ve seen crime films with cool soundtracks. We’ve seen crime films about the getaway driver. We’ve seen people working unwillingly in crime, and doing one last job. We’ve seen the elements put together so smoothly that it just flows, and this film has all that.

It also has something to say about all this; characters commenting on the make up of the team, noting how cool they are, relying on metafictional knowledge to get things done. The second heist, in which Baby resets his soundtrack twice when things go wrong in order to match the action and get his driving to work encapsulates that.

Which is why it is a little sad that in the end, the film doesn’t have anything more to say about crime, or crime films, or driving. It does have a little to say about music though, so that’s good.

(Just to be clear, this is me, a semi-professional crime writer, five years into studying real and fictional crimes, criticising a strong example of the heist film that is also clearly in conversation with the genre and coming to the conclusion that they could have had a more in depth examination. Picky, me?)

Watch This: For an ultra cool crime film with a few things to say about crime films.
Don’t Watch This: For something that’s not a crime film or if you don’t want to watch Kevin Spacey being ambiguously crime-boss-mentor