Edgar Wright’s throwback genre mashup is one of 2017’s best films.

Walter Hill’s seminal 70’s heist film The Driver has served as a touchstone for some of the most influential directors of the last twenty years. Its presence is felt in films like Nicholas Winding-Refn’s Drive to Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Deathproof. The story of a mononym anti-hero who excels at his singular profession and plays on the wrong side of the law while oozing cool is an attractive one and Edgar Wright uses that as the gem for the flashy yet old school Baby Driver. Ansel Elgort plays Baby, a music obsessed expert wheelman for the nefarious Doc (played with Faustian aplomb by Kevin Spacey), a mastermind in assembling crews to commit the most daring of robberies. Baby owes Doc a debt he’s working down by serving as the getaway man for the crews he’s been assembling to run his heists. These are a colorful bunch including the darkly charismatic Buddy (played by Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm) and his moll, Darling (Eiza Gonzales of El Rey Network’s From Dusk Til Dawn series) and the unhinged and maniacal Bats (Jaime Foxx in a great character performance). Baby is a great getaway driver, but has a code and tries to avoid injury to others if possible. He lives with a deaf mute named Joseph (CJ Wilson), whom he entertains with bass heavy music he uses to make mixes from songs he hears in the wild and snippets of conversations that he creates mixtapes out of. Baby had a traumatic experience resulting in permanent tinnitus and the songs he constantly plays are an escape from the ever present hum in his ears. After one of these heists, he stops at a diner, where he is mesmerized by a waitress named Debora (Lily Collins) who half sings a song featuring Baby’s name. The two bond and start a relationship based on the need the two both feel in their hearts for freedom, and more importantly, escape. Just as Baby thinks he’s free to escape this incidental criminal life he fell into, he hits a literal roadblock. As Doc’s seeming good luck charm, he is trapped into servitude and his only hope is to try and hit the open road with his girl and his music and escape this life against all odds.

While Wright’s film bears more than a passing resemblance to Tony Scott and Quentin Tarantino’s True Romance, this is more due to the likeability and shared charisma between its stars. Tarantino’s movie-maniac Clarence is an alternate universe of Baby; a single focused creature who finds love when he least expects it and will go to any ends to make it work. Lily Collins’ Debora is not unlike Patricia Arquette’s Alabama in being a small town girl with dreams and drive to match those of her paramour. The film’s soundtrack and choreographed action scenes are the film’s 3rd billed star. At times, Baby Driver is almost a musical with its camera movements done in time to the offbeat and eccentric soundtrack featuring deep cuts from Young M.C. to The Commodores and distinct cassette tape mixes orchestrated by Kid Koala. The film is stylishly and confidently directed down to a long unbroken camera shot after the film’s first heist scene where Baby grabs coffee for his cohorts through the busy and pedestrian filled streets of Atlanta, Georgia. Much like Wright made the real local sights and dives of Toronto, Ontario, Canada a character in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, he does the same here with Atlanta. We see its streets and record stores and divey coffee shops in a way we usually don’t in the town that most filmmakers use because it can stand in for anything. Here we get a flavor and sense of choreography in the car chases that Wright stages that you haven’t seen in films since The French Connection. Wright’s experience in creating a parody of an action film with 2006’s Hot Fuzz comes into play as he knows the beats to hit and many scenes throughout ring as homages to great action films of the 80’s and 90’s like Die Hard and Lethal Weapon.

Ultimately, the less you know about Baby Driver going in, the more you will enjoy it. It’s full of brilliant car chases, coupled with great comedic set pieces. Jon Hamm and Jaime Foxx deliver career high performances and there are brilliant small character roles like ‘The Butcher’ sprinkled in to make classic film fans happy. Just sit down, relax and let the music and visuals move you, because Baby Driver is one of this summer’s best.