History Film / BabyDriver

** In the first car chase, Baby happens to come across two red cars running side-by-side and have similar appearances to his red Subaru, which also happens to be near a tunnel, so he can use them to his advantage by switching positions with one of the red cars in the tunnel to trick the police helicopter following him.

** When the crew is driving back from [[spoiler:the botched gun buy with the dirty cops]] they drive right by [[spoiler:the diner where Debora works]] and Bats decides he wants to go in. Of course she is on night shift that day.
** Baby, despite running several blocks away, [[spoiler: still runs into Buddy and Darling outside the shopping mall.]]

* StupidStatementDanceMix: Baby records snippets of everyday conversations and does this to them as a hobby. [[spoiler:It bites him in the ass when his cohorts catch him in the act and suspect him of being a police snitch.]]

** At one point early in the film, Baby's channel-surfing between different films and catches lines from each in the closed captioning: "How's that working out for you?" from ''Film/FightClub'', "They grow up so freaking fast, don't they?" from ''Film/ItsComplicated'', and "You and I are a team; nothing is more important than our friendship" from ''WesternAnimation/MonstersInc''. He ends up working all three lines into later conversations; he actually ends up using the ''Monsters, Inc.'' line on Doc twice, and he catches it and cuts him off the second time.

** Just before the heist with Bats, Buddy, and Darling, Buddy asks Baby if he has Music/{{Queen}}'s "Brighton Rock" on one of his iPods. He does and they listen to it together in a bonding moment.

** Baby listens to “Easy” by [[Music/LionelRichie The Commodores]] when he has [[spoiler: to dispose of JD’s body and the car it was in.]] It’s later revealed that this is the song Baby’s mother sings on his cassette song (and when his mother’s version is played, it picks up where the earlier Commodore version left off). Apparently, Baby listens to “Easy” to console himself when he is sad.
** Buddy bonds with Baby over "[[Music/{{Queen}} Brighton Rock]]" early on. [[spoiler:At the climax when Buddy is trying to kill Baby with a stolen police cruiser, he blasts the song over the cruiser's speakers, reminding Baby how he said it was his "killer track".]]

* DeliberatelyNonLethalAttack: At the end of the film, Baby is finally cornered by Buddy, with nowhere to run and a gun to his head. Baby lives, but Buddy still has used the gun to deal his revenge. Buddy take aways [[spoiler:what Baby loves]]. He makes two shots [[spoiler:right next to Baby's ears]] so he's lost the ability to [[spoiler:enjoy his precious music]], but he's still alive.

* NamesTheSame: PlayedForLaughs in the second heist. JD is told to get masks of [[Franchise/{{Halloween}} Michael Myers]]. He ends up buying [[spoiler: three Film/AustinPowers masks, because he thought they meant ''Creator/MikeMyers'']].[[invoked]]

* PopculturalOsmosisFailure:

* ArtisticLicenseArt: When driving slowly around the parking lot looking for Baby, Buddy quotes the ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet'' line "wherefore art thou, Romeo?" This is a very common misconception. "Wherefore" means ''why'', not ''where''.

** Doc wanted Bats's group to wear [[{{Franchise/Halloween}} Michael Myers]] ''[[Film/{{Halloween 1978}} Halloween]]'' masks. [=JD=] instead gets ''[[Creator/MikeMyers Mike]] [[Film/AustinPowers Myers]]'' [[UsefulNotes/AllHallowsEve Halloween masks.]]

'''JD:''' This is Creator/MikeMyers!\\

'''JD:''' [[SustainedMisunderstanding This is a Halloween mask!]]\\

* ProductionThrowback: Intentionally done given how long Creator/EdgarWright has been wanting to make this movie: the opening scene of Baby grooving in the getaway car is a throwback to the music video Wright directed for Mint Royal's "Blue Song", right down to the windshield wipers turning on.

** Buddy, to a lesser degree. He loves his wife Darling, and even shares Baby's passion for music and driving. [[spoiler: He's also a drug addicted criminal who won't hesitate to murder police officers or harm innocents. He then tries to kill Baby for botching a robbery and getting his wife killed.]]

* AmbiguousDisorder: Baby listens to music to drown out the tinnitus caused by a childhood accident, which gives him intense focus needed to be a great driver. He speaks very little, and when he does speak, he often parrots things he's heard before, whether they be lines from movies, song lyrics, or things he's heard his associates say. He's also able to memorize fairly long and detailed plans and repeat them word-for-word after reading the lips of the speaker only once.

* BeautyIsNeverTarnished: Played straight with Debora, [[spoiler:averted with Darling, when she gets shot and killed by the police.]]

** Buddy also says "wherefore art thou, Romeo", and it cuts to a shot of Debora. Lily James had just starred in a production of ''Theatre/RomeoAndJuliet''.

* ASideOrderOfRomance: Baby falls in love with the waitress that works at an old-fashioned diner that the crew visit a few times while on the job. She doesn't learn about his true career until near the end of the movie, but she is incredibly loyal to him, willing to risk death and imprisonment for him even though she barely knows him. The AmbiguousEnding [[spoiler: implies that she waits for him for his whole jail sentence. ]] The film also provides the trope image.

* AlasPoorVillain: [[spoiler:While they were criminals who didn’t have any qualms about any of the laws they broke, you can’t help but feel sorry for Buddy and Darling by the end of the movie as it wasn’t until the robbery went horribly wrong that they were torn down in their good-nature.]]

* AmbiguousTimePeriod: There is a vague sense of TwentyMinutesIntoThePast about the setting. People still use iPods and there's nary a smart phone to be seen, but in a flashback we also see Baby as a child getting a first-generation iPod as a birthday present. Given his age in that scene versus his age now you'd think the film's timeline would be a post-iPod setting. Of course it's entirely possible that Baby collects iPods for their retro appeal (as well as their sentimental value to him given that he still keeps his destroyed first iPod), and as most of the people we meet in the film are criminals it would make sense for them to be using disposable "burner" phones that couldn't reveal a lot of personal data about them if they fell into police hands. However there is definitely a sense of some deliberate anacronism in the film's setting.

* BigBad: At first, Doc seemed as this, but Doc is more of an AntiVillain. The real BigBad is [[spoiler: pretty much everyone else in the group.]] [[spoiler: Buddy especially because other than Baby, he’s the last man standing.]]

* BottomlessMagazines: In the garage shootout, Doc fires at least 9 shots from his Ithica 37 shotgun, well over the maximum amount it can hold in the tube.
* BoomHeadshot: Bats kills one of the Butcher’s {{Mooks}} with a point-blank range gunshot.

** The camera lingers on “Soldier Boy” before the truck robbery. Then, when the crew tries to get away, he shows himself to be a VigilanteMan.

* ColorMotif: Red is the dominant color when things are going Baby's way (i.e. his red Subaru in the opening robbery, the driving gloves, the sign for Bo's Diner, his pizza delivery car and uniform), and blue when they aren't (i.e. the car Baby uses for the second botched robbery, the hat and jacket he steals as a disguise when trying to escape on foot, [[spoiler:the siren lights from the police car Buddy steals]]).

* DoubleTap: Bats shoots down the fat security guard and adds another headshot to make sure.

** Doc’s nephew, Sam, is fully complicit in Doc's bank robbing schemes while only being 8 years old.

---> '''Doc:''' Don’t feed me any more lines from ''Monsters, Inc''. It pisses me off!

* TheMillstone: Bats, oh so very much. He's basically walking talking id with no impulse control. He kills people like most normal people swat flies with no regard to whether or not he should be bringing police attention on himself (for example, when he murders a gas station attendant while prepping for a heist simply because he didn't want to pay for gum), implies that he sooner or later kills everybody he knows -- in front of people he's dependent on for his well-being -- and will threaten his own getaway driver moments after committing a pointless murder while still on a job. His shooting up of Doc's crooked cops during the arms deal provokes a lethal response from said arms dealer's associates. Why Doc thought such a person would be of any use even as DumbMuscle boggles the mind. [[spoiler:Needless to say his death at the hands of Baby goes unmourned.]]

** JD. Instead of getting masks based on the character Michael Myers from the movie ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'', he gets Halloween masks of the actor Creator/MikeMyers from ''Film/AustinPowers''. Shortly after that, while the crew is changing cars, he ends up leaving his shotgun behind. This ends with Doc deciding that he's TooDumbToLive. Leaving the shotgun behind is actually justified because JD’s is the only one that didn’t have a shoulder strap.

--> '''Baby''': Your tattoo says, “Hat.”
--> '''JD''': Yeah, it used to say “Hate”. But to increase my chances of employment, I got the E removed.
--> '''Baby''': How’s that working out for you?
--> '''JD''': Who doesn’t like hats?

* VillainousRescue: During the Tequila shootout, Bats saves Baby’s life by gunning down one of the Butcher’s men who’s shooting at Baby.

** Baby spends the entire time during operations not wearing anything to properly conceal his face. [[spoiler:So, it's no wonder why he's arrested in the end.]]

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Double subverted. Buddy seems to fall while inside a cop car, but got out at the last second, but then he dies for real when he falls onto said car... [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill which then]] [[EveryCarIsAPinto explodes]].]]

** One more ''very'' subtle one from the channel surfing: On one channel, Baby passes a clip from ''Film/ItsComplicated'' with Creator/JohnKrasinski saying "they grow up so freaking fast, don't they?". Baby says the same line [[spoiler: when he gets Sam's age wrong while scouting out the Post Office]].

** The post office cashier quotes Music/DollyParton to Baby: "You can't have a rainbow without a little rain." [[spoiler:In the final scene there's a rainbow in the background when he gets out of prison.]]

* GainaxEnding: The ending is so idyllic, romantic, and far too similar to Baby's dream of hitting the road with Debora that there's room for interpreting it as ItWasAllADream.

* InUniverseSoundtrack: Baby listens to songs on an iPod almost constantly to help combat the tinnitus that he otherwise experiences. Of course, that's some incredible {{Understatement}}, as the film blends music into its action in such an incredibly ''epic'' fashion that it's difficult to describe with just words. Highlights include "Bellbottoms" by the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and "Brighton Rock" by Music/{{Queen}}.

** Baby tries go straight by driving for Film/GoodFellas pizza.

** Buddy's real name is revealed on the police radio as "Jason Van Horn", during the middle of his slasher villain-like rampage during the climax of the film. His name, recently awakened psychotic behavior, and inhuman durability resembles [[Franchise/FridayThe13th Jason Voorhees]], who is the subject of a discussion during the second heist.
** When Baby is [[spoiler: running from the cops on foot]], [[WesternAnimation/OneHundredAndOneDalmatians one person's dog starts barking and the owner yells "Pongo, stop!"]]
** There's even a shoutout to Edgar Wright himself. One of the clips that Baby turns through when surfing the TV happens to be the start of the music video for Mint Royale's "Blue Song." Before making ''Baby Driver'', Edgar Wright had already "cannibalized" his idea for the film's opening scene to serve as the basis of the music video.

* BondOneLiner: After killing [[spoiler:Bats]] by [[spoiler:fulfilling his order to [[ExactWords "move the car"]] through ramming it forward into the back of truck carrying a bundle of rebar which loosens and impales his chest]], [[spoiler:Baby]] responds to [[spoiler:Buddy]]'s "What the fuck did you do?" with a simple ''"I moved."''

** JD. Instead of getting masks based on the character Michael Myers from the movie ''Franchise/{{Halloween}}'', he gets Halloween masks of the actor Creator/MikeMyers from ''Film/AustinPowers''. Shortly after that, while the crew is changing cars, he ends up leaving his shotgun behind. This ends with Doc deciding that he's TooDumbToLive.

''Baby Driver'' is a 2017 action film written and directed by Creator/EdgarWright.

Unlike what the title and the director's previous body of work (such as the ''Film/ThreeFlavoursCornettoTrilogy'') might suggest, this is not a tightly-tuned comedy, but rather a tightly-tuned action crime drama (though Wright's SignatureStyle of comedy still leaks through).

Creator/AnselElgort plays Baby ([[CatchPhrase B-a-b-y Baby]]), a young GetawayDriver whose affinity for always listening to his iPod while he drives [[BunnyEarsLawyer makes him extremely skilled at his job]]. He has a tragic past working for a crime boss (Creator/KevinSpacey) and his gang of bank robbers, and when he meets and falls in love with an innocent waitress (Creator/LilyJames), he finally [[OneLastJob has a reason to leave the criminal world]].

** Buddy is nothing but cordial with Baby, standing up for him when Griff harasses him at the start and bonding with him over music. He also clearly loves Darling, his wife. He even doesn't hold [[spoiler:Baby trying to run away the night before a job against him, telling him he'd prefer it if Baby just left than go into a job half assing it.]] However, Buddy is an unrepentant bank robber. And [[spoiler:when Baby's actions indirectly get Darling killed by the police, Buddy will stop at nothing to kill Baby.]]

* BondingThroughSharedEarbuds: Just before the heist with Bats, Buddy, and Darling, Buddy asks Baby if he has Music/{{Queen}}'s "Brighton Rock" on one of his iPods. He does and they listen to it together in a bonding moment. Inverted when Bats asks Baby to lend him an earbud to hear what's playing on the iPod when they meet the Butcher (it's "Tequila"), which is yet another moment of Bats needling Baby.

* BreakingTheFourthWall: During a shootout, Baby listens to "Tequila". While Bats knows this, he has no way of hearing the music coming through Baby's earbuds and playing non-diegetically over the scene, yet still says "tequila" in sync with the end of the song. Baby even turns to him shocked at his timing.

Unlike what the title and the director's previous body of work (such as the ''Film/BloodAndIceCreamTrilogy'') might suggest, this is not a tightly-tuned comedy, but rather a tightly-tuned action crime drama (though Wright's SignatureStyle of comedy still leaks through).

** Additionally, all six main characters have names that start with B or D - Baby, Buddy, Bats, Darling, Debora, and Doc.

* RealityEnsues: Darling's attempt to take on dozens of Atlanta cops by walking out in the open while firing with submachine guns in each hand may look cool, but ends with realistically fatal results.