Nathan Rabin's Bad Ideas

Nathan Rabin's Bad Ideas

The Joy of Positivity pick of the day is Edgar Wright's Stylish 2017 Action Melodrama Baby Driver

If you enjoy music, I have a movie for you! It's Baby Driver, specifically

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Nathan Rabin
Sep 24, 2025
∙ Paid

Like Ryan O’Neal’s character in The Driver and Ryan Gosling in Drive, but unlike Corey Feldman in License to Drive, in 2018’s Baby Driver, Ansel Elgort’s moody loner floats through the world like a ghost until it’s time for action. Then the tires squeal, and he does what God, and also possibly the Devil, put him on Earth to do.

The film’s premise boasts an archetypal simplicity. A young man blessed and cursed with both fundamental innocence and an easily and lucratively exploitable skill set is taken advantage of by a powerful older man while trying to break free from the criminal underworld for the sake of the girl he’s in love with. Even the profession of the romantic lead is straight out of a pulp paperback: she’s a waitress.

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