Baby Driver. Great fun.

Do you know what's deadly? Going into a film you fully expect to hate and finding out it's great fun and a thoroughly entertaining way to spend 2 hrs. It's just lovely.

Edgar Wright directed this. I despised his last 2 films. Found them all style and no substance, especially the execrable Scott Pilgrim Vs The World. Even typing that hurt. The trailers for this made it look like more of the same but happily it's far from the case. There's plenty in here to back up the style. 

Baby (Ansel Elgort) is the star of the film. A young man suffering from tinnitus and possessing otherworldly skill behind the wheel. To combat the tinnitus he constantly listens to music. And his job is driving bank robbers away after they commit their crimes. Baby wants out of this world but his skills are just too valuable to some.

It's fairly straightforward stuff but it's done with such vim and vigour that you can't help getting pulled into it. It's funny (one gag about mask confusion made me snort with laughter), fast, vicious in places and most importantly it's got heart. Baby might be a criminal but he's still a decent chap and he cares a lot about the people in his life. If a film doesn't have a character to root for it's not much of a film.

The cast is cracking. Elgort is a solid lead, Kevin Spacey as the brains behind the operation has a whale of a time. Lily Collins as the girl who steals Baby's heart is just lovely. Jamie Foxx has great fun as a loop the loop criminal who just wants to fire his gun. Jon Hamm and Eiza Gonzalez round out the cast but don't add much TBH. Hamm was great in Mad Men but I just haven't liked him in any films yet. Can't put my finger on why.

The soundtrack though. The music is amazing. The whole film is built around it. It's as big a part of the film as the characters or plotline. It's a constant presence. Gunfire sprays in rhythm to it. Cars weave through traffic to it. Sentences spoken by the characters dance around it. It's like a character in the film, almost a co-lead with Elgort. Truth be told I didn't recognise a lot of it but the choices seemed to fit the film perfectly. Kudos to Wright on his musical taste. I'll be looking a lot of it up.

I really liked this. I think ye will too.