‘Baby Driver’ is the movie you should be streaming this weekend

The title “Baby Driver” conjures up a lot of images and it’s likely that a grand total of none of them involve a 20-something getaway driver under the thumb of Kevin Spacey.

Still, director Edgar Wright’s heist film is a madcap thrill behind the wheel, one that’s definitely worth checking out on iTunes and other digital release platforms this weekend.

Finally, a musical for people who don’t like musicals: If you’re of the mind that people shouldn’t spontaneously burst into song unless they were drawn by a qualified animator at Walt Disney Studios, then consider this the No-Man’s Land between Toon Town and Broadway. Music drives every frame this film, which means that we get treated to the likes of The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and a soulful cover of The Commodore’s “Easy” by singer Sky Ferreira.

There are some truly fantastic high-speed car chases: Seriously, it’s worth watching just to get some creative ideas on how to cut your morning commute in half.

It’s, like, five different movies at once: I know that sounds like a backhanded compliment but it’s actually quite the opposite (fronthanded?). “Baby Driver” starts out as a heist movie, spends a brief spell as an old-school Hollywood romance, doubles back into crime country and then becomes something else entirely in the third act. To say what would spoil the fun, but it might be more surprising to know that all of this somehow manages to hold together even as the film starts to pick up speed.

“That’s a No-Nose no-no’s page one” and other Edgar Wright-isms: Edgar Wright has an ear for absurdist dialogue and it rolls of the tongues of hardened criminals surprisingly well — especially when they’re played by Jamie Foxx.

Don Draper is nuts, everybody: Actually I mean that Jon Hamm is nuts and by Jon Hamm I mean his character, Buddy, a coked-out horndog of an ex-stockbroker who’s kind of a maniac but in a totally avuncular, semi-sympathetic yet ultra-masculine way. I can’t put it any clearer than that.

Surprise! Barry White makes for great tension (no, the other kind): There’s a sequence somewhere in the back half of the film that involves a gun, a newspaper and the sweet, sweet strains of “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up.” White’s 1973 disco tune heightens everything about the scene, from the raw emotion that gets it going to the bang that shifts everything into a new gear.

This story was originally published September 15, 2017 at 9:11 AM with the headline "‘Baby Driver’ is the movie you should be streaming this weekend."