Ford v Ferrari

Ever since the advent of the race car, Hollywood has had a fascination with this concept. Certainly since Cinerama's 1966 premiere of "Grand Prix", audiences have been glued to the screen. Films like "Driven", "Death Race" and "Rush" has furthered this fascination. So when "Ford v Ferrari" was to be released, I felt it would a winner, and it certainly was.

 

This film is based on the remarkable true story of the visionary American car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and the fearless British-born driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who together battled corporate interference, namely Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) and Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas), the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.

 

Others to round out the cast are Caitriona Balfe as Mollie Miles, Ken's wife, Noah Jupe as Peter Miles, Ken and Mollie's son, Ray McKinnon as Phil Remington, one of the designers for Shelby and Miles, JJ Feild as Roy Lunn and Jack McMullen as Charlie Agapiou.

 

This was directed with fervor by veteran James Mangold ("Heavy" '95, "Cop Land" '97, "Girl, Interrupted" '99, "Kate & Leopold" '01, "Identity" '03, "Walk the Line" '05, "3:10 to Yuma" '07, "Knight and Day" '10, "The Wolverine" '13, "Logan" '17) plus TV. Not only was this director able to encourage his actors to emit the emotions that delineated the scene well, but he certainly worked magic coordinating the amazing photography and editing which added as much toward the story as the story itself. It will be interesting to see how his "Juliet" works which is in pre-production. It was rivetingly well written by veteran writers Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller. Jez Butterworth has the lions share of the experience here, however the other two writers are talented in their own rights. This had a running time of 2-1/2 hours and it simply moved right along. Usually if a film exceeds a 2 hour running time, I get very fidgety, but the fluidity here was well honed. Also when a film encumbers more than 2 writers, it can turn into a mess--too many hands in the pot, but because these writers were consummate pros, they were able to obviously work together as a true team.

 

I've always liked automotive design and car races, so this film rang true to me, but even if one isn't a staunch admirer of cars, the acting, writing and directing were incredible. Really, everything about this film was stunning including the photography and editing. It's thrilling, action-packed and all with a good story. It's even in a nifty IMAX and 4DX  format if you prefer. You must see this on a large screen, otherwise you'll lose the full impact.

 

Out of 4 Stars: 4                                    Rated: PG-13                                  152mins.