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.