Directed by Edgar Wright
Picturehouse, Liverpool
From 30th June 2017
Reviewed by Colin Serjent
This film is cliched beyond a cliche!
Despite all the endless hype surrounding it, I found it jarring to watch for three main reasons.
There was incessant gratuitous violence – people constantly blown away by high-powered guns – and endless car chases – yawn, yawn – plus the wayward acting by some of the actors, including Kevin Spacey.
Critics have paid particular attention to the so-called impressive film soundtrack, but I am not sure why.
It is a hotchpotch of music, including, among many others, Barry White, Bob & Earl, Beck and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers.
All in all, it is a mix of easy listening, punk, Britpop, jazz, soul and glam rock.
The most impressive sequence of music was Neat Neat Neat by the Damned. It still sounds as fresh as when it was first released forty odd years ago.
The inclusion of so much and multi-varied music was based around the character Baby (Ansel Elgort), aged 23 or so, the designated driver for the cold-hearted Atlanta crime overlord Doc, played by Spacey.
What we hear is what Baby hears through his earphones, which he constantly uses. One reason for doing so is to drown out the tinnitus he suffers from, following a car accident when he was an adolescent, which led to his mother being killed.
The music inspires his sometimes erratic impulses and actions.
In a blast to the past he still uses cassette tapes.
He tapes various snatches of conversation on a daily basis and later uses them as a means for creating rap collages.
There were a number of robbery sprees but they became increasingly predictable, in a similar way to the movie.
The most mawkish aspect of the film is the relationship between Baby and the forever smiling cafe waitress Deborah (Lily James). They both dream about escaping from the evil and oppressive city to drive endlessly throughout America, while listening to music in their car.
They think they will be free. But what is freedom?
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