Dumb Things In Baby Driver Everyone Just Ignored

Director Edgar Wright pulled off quite the thrilling feat with Baby Driver, his white-knuckle adventure about a young man who's really, really good at driving for really bad people. We might be pointing out issues with the film here, but first things first: Baby Driver is really, really good. Critics loved it, and Wright is already mapping out ideas for a sequel or two. Despite its excellence, though, the film isn't perfect. From strange plot points to its hazy ending, we were left with some questions that may not have actually been intended. Here are all the dumb things everyone just ignored in Baby Driver.

From bandanas to full-on Austin Powers rubber masks, the robbers working for Doc take a lot of precautions before hitting a bank—everyone except Baby, apparently. Even though he's clearly paying attention to all the pre-mission briefings, he never actually bothers to bring along anything to hide his face. His lack of criminal anonymity is never more obvious than in the scene where the heist goes sideways and the team is forced to abandon its car for a new getaway ride. We see the entire team take off looking for a new car, all sporting their masks and gloves to hide their identities, while Baby jacks a car in the same clothes he wears all the time. He also rarely bothers to even wear a pair of gloves during all these missions. Couldn't the police dust the interiors of those stolen cars for fingerprints once they're eventually recovered? 

News footage plays around the periphery of the film as viewers learn Doc has been running a rash of bank robberies that have plagued all of Atlanta for quite some time. One of the few leads in the case is a traffic camera image of a young white male behind the wheel. If Baby is so keen to eventually escape this criminal life, why not make more of an effort to actually conceal his real identity along the way?

There's no doubt that Baby is an amazing, inconceivably good driver. The film features car chase after car chase where Baby pulls off physics-defying twists and turns to elude everyone from the police to gun-happy citizens, all the while bobbing along to his deep cut soundtrack. His skills would almost certainly allow him to break loose from a typical car chase, but in the film's kinetic opening scene, he catches a few too many breaks. One of the biggest is the dumb luck to spot two nearly identical cars passing by, which he uses as a decoy while passing under an overpass to lose a police helicopter. It made for a fun twist to wrap up the chase, but the sheer serendipity of it all borders on unbelievable. The move obviously wasn't planned or coordinated, but picking it apart, it took a lot of luck for Baby and the gang to stay out from behind bars.

A key plot point finds the bank-robbing gang discovering that Baby has recorded several of his interactions with Doc and his crews. He's one heck of a good remix artist, and he makes some sick tunes out of those conversations, but he's still secretly recording cold-blooded killers. Baby is obviously a bit naive when it comes to the criminal element, but even an absolute bonehead would have to question the decision to take a tape recorder into a meeting where you're literally kicking back and discussing bank robbing. Baby's cassette collection is a major part of the film's narrative thanks to his love of music and the recording left behind by his mother. It also leads Doc and the team to turn on him once they discover his recorder. It doesn't matter how good the mix might be, recording bank robbers without their permission is never a good idea.

Depending on the part of the country in which you live, it's not terribly uncommon for average citizens to carry firearms with a proper permit. With Baby Driver set in Atlanta, Georgia, it's not a huge shock when the good samaritan who spots the crew robbing the armored truck decides to take a few shots at Baby and the gang in an effort to stop them. However, things go a lot further than just a guy making an effort to try and help when the citizen pulls out his own semi-automatic machine gun and pursues Baby's vehicle—eventually trashing his own truck during a high-speed pursuit with both sides firing wildly into traffic. It made for a bonkers action scene and shootout, but seeing an average citizen just jump into the fray to this degree is still farfetched. A few of these hardcore good samaritans might be out there, but you'd have to think the odds of stumbling across one while raiding a bank truck is rare.

Wright built Baby Driver on top of some interesting archetypes when putting together the film, and one of the biggest is the mysterious dream girl Debora. In Debora, Baby finds a soulmate who is gorgeous, shares his love of obscure music, and even likes to take off driving with no particular destination in mind. It's almost as if she's manufactured in a petri dish to be Baby's perfect woman, so it's no surprise he's positively smitten with her. Things get a bit more complicated when you consider the fact that the events of the movie seem to take place over just a few days' time. This epic love story at the heart of the film is basically a crush that resulted in just one real date before all hell breaks loose in Baby's life. Debora has no qualms about taking off and driving into the sunset with this guy being hunted by crazed killers and cops. It makes for an epic love story—and yes, love at first sight can certainly happen! But the crux of the film still hinges on an extremely far-fetched relationship.

One of the film's weirdest turns comes when Kevin Spacey's Doc decides to basically sacrifice himself to try and cover Baby and Debora's escape once the final heist goes awry. This change of heart doesn't just play against type—it makes no sense at all. For the entire film, we're told Doc is a ruthless criminal mastermind who will kill Baby and everyone he loves if he doesn't go along with all these bank robberies to pay off his debt. Just as Doc is packing up his his base of operations and making his escape, Baby shows up asking for help. At this point Baby has pretty much ruined Doc's entire criminal enterprise in one reckless night. Instead of simply killing Baby, Doc decides to help him escape—then willingly sacrifices his life to battle a group of criminals to cover Baby's exit. We've seen Doc need dead bodies disposed of before, so we know he's willing to kill to protect his business. So why give it all up to help Baby? Doc only gives one vague reason for this change of heart, telling baby he "was in love once." That's it? The twist seems to exist mostly to further the plot, as opposed to Doc's character development.

One of Doc's main strategies to avoid being caught is to use a different crew for every bank robbery he stages, though he does mix and match members of those various crews along the way. It's on one of the later heists where we meet Jamie Foxx's Bats, who immediately dislikes Baby. Doc sends the crew on a side mission to pick up some weapons, which Bats turns into a bloody shootout during which he kills pretty much everyone they were sent to meet.

We later find out those gun dealers were apparently on Doc's payroll, yet he still keeps Bats on the team. Why on Earth does he let such a loose cannon stay on? He's shown he isn't capable of following orders and is far too willing to shoot literally anyone he comes in contact with, something that would almost certainly bring even more unwanted attention on Doc's operation. Does Doc not even check the references of his would-be criminal conspirators? Even if he didn't know Bats was nuts, why didn't Doc cut him loose after the first mission goes epically sideways?

A major plot point in Baby Driver finds Baby's two separate lives crashing into one another when Bats insists they stop and get a bite at the hole-in-the-wall diner where Debora works. It creates one of the most tense scenes in the film as Baby tries desperately to hide the fact that he knows Debora, until he has to finally show his hand by grabbing Bats' gun to stop him from shooting her as they leave. The scene sets up the film's big finale that finally drags Debora into the darker side of Baby's life, but it all hinges on the sheer randomness of Bats deciding to pop into that specific diner at that specific moment. Atlanta is a big city, with a lot of restaurants. It's a plot contrivance to drive the narrative forward, plain and simple, but the scene is so fun you almost ignore it.

All of Baby Driver is loosely framed in a dreamlike quality, but the ending takes things a step further. The film ends with a montage of Baby spending his time in prison after surrendering to keep Debora out of trouble. The timeline gets fuzzy, but the final shot is of Baby getting out of prison and Debora outside the gate waiting for him—complete with a classic car ready for the duo to hit the road. Taken at face value, it seems like a storybook ending to a bank-robbing love story. Wright said he believes the scene is "up for interpretation" for viewers who may not take it as-is, while star Ansel Elgort has a much more fantastical explanation, arguing the ending is a "fantasy" dreamed up by Baby in prison, where he imagines a life where he and Debora "ride off into the sunset together." But however you interpret it, that ending is nowhere near as simple as it may seem.