Baby Driver is a thrilling homage to classic film

From the opening scene of Baby Driver you'll be swept up in the fun - tapping your foot to every song and gripping your arm rest during every car chase. Each transition is an explosion of color, fast beats, and fast cars. Baby (played by Ansel Elgort) is a getaway driver who oozes cool. But there's a lot more than meets the eye with this heart-throb. The action-packed thrill ride is just a nice package for our protagonist's journey whose untouchable exterior will spark your curiosity right away.

Edgar Wright (the brains behind such films as Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead) never fails to deliver something quirky and interesting, but this film strays a bit from his other work. It's fresh and unique, yet also acts as a homage of sorts to classic movies. Wright has cited all of the action movies that inspired this story in several interviews from The Blues Brothers (1980) to Bullit (1968). 

We are thrown into the action right away as Baby narrowly escapes the cops after a heist - expertly winding through the streets of Atlanta with a soundtrack to match. It's pretty much off to the races after that. Baby is the getaway driver for a series of heists organized by Doc (played by Kevin Spacey). Doc assembles a different team of criminals each time, except for Baby. He calls on Baby every time. 

Baby doesn't talk much, but he is constantly listening to music - a quirk that turns out to be a mechanism to distract him from the ringing in his ears caused by an injury he sustained as a little boy. We get the pleasure of hearing each song playing on Baby's iPod. When Baby isn't driving he lives a pretty isolated existence with the exception of his foster dad, Joseph, who happens to be deaf. His foster dad isn't a fan of his line of work, but Baby keeps telling him it's only temporary - a necessary evil to pay off his debt to Doc.

We are introduced to new characters with each new heist, and they are anything but dull. From the psychotic married couple who can't keep their hands of each other (played by Jon Hamm and Eiza Gonzalez) to the guy who could go off the rails at any moment and just shoot someone (played by Jamie Foxx). Despite his skill behind the wheel you get a feeling that Baby is in over his head - especially since each job seems to be getting more and more dangerous.

Enter Deborah. When he catches her singing and swaying to her own music down the street, he can't help but be drawn to this cute waitress who works at the local diner. Baby's hard exterior starts to melt away as he falls for Deborah and realizes there's more at stake. We see what he's really made of when the crisis hits and he can't quite escape the life of crime he's now trapped in. 

If you're looking for an Oceans 11-esque heist film where you love all of the characters even though they are criminals, you won't find that here. True to form, Edgar Wright delivers on some epic deaths and absurd violence (though this is quite tame compared with his previous films). But where this movie gets it right is in its unique mix of thrilling action sustained by a classic love story and a soundtrack that propels the story forward.

Some of the action felt chaotic and exhausting to me at times and there were some gaps in the narrative that would have been helped by a stronger script, but overall I loved the fun and quirky style of Wright's fifth major film. With each piece of action landing to the beat of the amazing soundtrack this movie is oddly satisfying and definitely a good choice if you are making your way to the theater this summer.