The Film Reports

FILM REVIEW

3.5 stars

Action, Crime, Music

It was the film that came up and surprised everyone this summer. Atleast, that’s how I knew about this film – I saw posters maybe a week before the film was released. I don’t know what that says about the film, but I have finally watched it, only a couple of months late.

If there was one thing I knew about this film, it was that the film is played to its soundtrack. The music that Baby (Ansel Elgort) is listening to – and he’s listening to music all throughout the film – is the music we hear. Despite thinking this was a gimmick, I was super excited about this. Spoiler, it’s epic.

The plot is about Baby who is the driver in a team of thieves. In the opening scene, they pull of a heist in a bank while Baby waits in the car outside. It’s here that we first see the that crucial audio/visual effect first being utilised. Baby drums along as the song reaches its chorus and the guns come out inside the bank. It’s brilliant. It’s so good. There’s also plenty of cool driving throughout the film.

The plot then continues with more info on how Baby got the job in the first place, why he’s still doing it, his personal life etc etc. It’s a pretty simple storyline. It’s really not complicated or really that interesting on it own. The characters – with the exception of Baby and maybe two other people – are mainly flat stereotypes. The writers don’t care about character depth and frankly, neither will you. Even Baby manages to remain mostly a mystery despite the film following him. One good outcome is that everyone gets this same treatment. Baby has a disability – the reason for the music – and so does his guardian, Joe, who can’t speak. We don’t really get more than that which means that there isn’t very much focus on his disability despite being a constant throughout the film. Brilliant.

Special shout-out to Debora (Lily James) who exists solely for Baby to have some little ambition. We don’t know anything about her. Literally nothing. I could put this down as mistreatment of women but I do think it’s less about women and more just general carelessness of the script. One of the reasons why I think this is because of Eiza Gonzalez’s character, Darling, who is a furcoat-clad, gun-toting badass. She’s so cool, even if she did initially remind me of Megan Fox’s character from the Transformer series. Darling is one of the most dangerously reckless criminals in the squad and I really wish that we were given more backstory about her.

In summary, my thoughts about this film are simple – it should be shit; the characters aren’t interesting, the love story at the centre is dumb and the film is clearly about the use of its music. However, that gimmick (i don’t know what else to call it) is just so well-done that, while you’re watching the film, all of the bad things about it aren’t noticeable. I very much enjoyed this and I would definitely watch it again and again (and again).