Putting well-known songs in your movie is a tricky thing. Bad directors lean on them like crutches, crossing their fingers that a well-placed jam will do the heavy lifting. Only a handful of directors can pull it off, through a combo of great taste and tremendous visual confidence. So Edgar Wright has his work cut out for him: Baby Driver is wall-to-wall music. Its protagonist, Baby (Ansel Elgort), suffers from tinnitus caused by a childhood accident, and constantly needs music in his ears to block out the background hum. Baby has an impressive collection of vintage iPods, and he’s assembled a collection of killer playlists to soundtrack his jobs as a getaway driver for a team of bank robbers.
It’s a daffy conceit, and it might take you a track or two to fall into the stylized rhythm that marks Wright’s work—from Shaun of the Dead to Hot Fuzz to Scott Pilgrim vs. the World—and drop-kicks naturalism to the curb. But once its tires grip pavement, Baby Driver becomes a full-throttle ballet of motion, color, and sound.