Baby Driver - Be Reel Blog - Ben Schultz

An interesting movie I watched a couple weekends ago was Baby Driver, by Edgar Wright. By many standards, this is an ordinary action movie. It has car chases, explosions, and shootouts. But if you take a closer look and try to analyze the film, you might realize that the film is much more unique and special than many of the action movies that come out nowadays. One interesting thing that is rare to find in films is the synchronization of diegetic and non-diegetic audio. In most films, the songs and music in the film are not explained in the plot. You don’t see Obi-Wan put headphones in and start listening to Duel of Fates before he fights Darth Maul. In Baby Driver, the majority of the music is played by Baby through his headphones. Because of this, the music may pause or rewind based on the character’s actions in the film, rather than being unaffected by the plot like most films. Another way this film is unique is the costume design and color palette. Edgar Wright has said in the past that he tries to color code the outfits the characters in his movies wear. This is especially true in Baby Driver. For example, throughout the movie, Baby wears only a black jacket and a white or grey undershirt. As the movie progresses, the color of the undershirt he wears gets slightly darker and darker. This could reflect a change in Baby’s personality, or a darkening of morals. Edgar Wright not only shows a character’s personality through costume choices, but also through color palette. For example, many of the scenes where Doc is the focus have a more green color palette. Green is the color of money, which appears to be the only thing that Doc really cares about.

    Personally, I liked this movie a lot. I thought it was an interesting and original action movie, in a world where the majority of action movies are sequels or superhero movies. This movie did one of my favorite things that movies do, in that it synchronized the music and what was happening in the movie. Gunshots might align with the beat of the song, for example. I do not have many criticisms, apart from the film’s occasional dip into cliché. For example, Baby is the perfect “criminal with a heart of gold,” who, although commits crimes, is against killing. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and I place it firmly in the “Good, Good” category.