*My review of Ford v Ferrari was originally published on Film Inquiry. Click here to read my original post and check out more great reviews from this awesome site!*
The first thing to know about Ford v Ferrari is that it’s too long. Many press members at Film Fest 919 liked this one to varying degrees, but everyone concluded that it could afford to lose a good amount of its current running time. James Mangold‘s racing epic runs 152 minutes, and it could easily cut 30 or even 45 minutes without losing much of its overall impact. To be blunt, it’s also something of a structural mess, a film that seems rather lost and unfocused before finally finding its footing.
Let’s be honest: at this point in the review, you’re probably thinking this all sounds pretty negative, right? Well, with those two massive, noteworthy caveats out of the way, it’s safe to say that I quite enjoyed Ford v Ferrari, both as a blockbuster respite from the emotional heavyweights at the festival and as an old-fashioned drama told on an event movie scale. Through sheer star power and spectacle, Mangold‘s latest overcomes problems that would easily debilitate any other movie. That’s no easy feat.
It’s the early 1960s in America — the height of the Mad Men era — and Henry Ford II (the ever-reliable Tracy Letts) wants to buy Ferrari. The iconic Italian car manufacturer is struggling, and Ford II (also known as “The Deuce”) sees this as an opportunity to build a racing partnership that will be mutually beneficial. The Deuce sends Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) to Italy to broker a deal, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) does not take kindly to this offer. Angry and humiliated, Ford decides on a second option: building a racing team from the ground up.
To build the next great American automobile and win the 24 hour race at Le Mans, Ford turns to Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a racing icon with the right skill set to beat Ferrari. But it can’t be Shelby behind the wheel — he has a heart condition that prevents him from racing at Le Mans again. For this task, Shelby knows there’s only one man for the job: Ken Miles (Christian Bale), a hot-headed British driver. Despite his prickly personality and disdain for collaboration, Ken is the only one who can build a car better than Ferrari. It’s not an easy road for Shelby and Miles — Ford’s top adviser, Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas), seems hellbent on making sure Miles doesn’t lead the company to the finish line. But even with some internal resistance, the racing world’s heavily accented odd couple —Damon and Bale are laying it on thick here — may just pull off an upset for the ages.
Though it isn’t quite as affectionately curated as the old-school relics of something like Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ford v Ferrari does share a certain kinship with recent nostalgia vehicles. It is steeped in the consumer hallmarks of mid-century Americana: Coke bottles, Ford cars, Coppertone ads, old-school outfits, playful architecture, the list goes on and on. Like Tarantino‘s mid-summer masterpiece, it’s a lament for a bygone era of American life, though in this case it longs for a lost moment of American brilliance: it fondly remembers a time when two men could be handed an impossible task and somehow figure out a way to beat the odds. Unlike Ron Howard‘s Rush — which remains undefeated as the great modern racing movie — Ford v Ferrari has no lingering interest in the psychology of racing. Instead, Mangold wisely reduces the sport to a quest for mechanical perfection, a strategic method of pushing the car to its absolute limits to achieve victory.
Coupled with its love of old-fashioned American style, Ford v Ferrari fully embraces its status as a throwback blockbuster. Though this may require a bit of an interpretive jump, the film as a whole seems to yearn for the pre-Disney days when big-budget films were still made by real craftsmen, telling star-driven stories on a gargantuan scale. Mangold may have made big bucks with two superhero epics, but he’s still one of Tinseltown’s lone gunslingers, pushing to keep an old, theoretically outdated mode of populist cinema alive.
Even with some pretty glaring flaws, it’s hard not to admire Ford v Ferrari for this reason alone.
THE FINAL GRADE: B (7.4/10)
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
The first thing to know about Ford v Ferrari is that it’s too long. Many press members at Film Fest 919 liked this one to varying degrees, but everyone concluded that it could afford to lose a good amount of its current running time. James Mangold‘s racing epic runs 152 minutes, and it could easily cut 30 or even 45 minutes without losing much of its overall impact. To be blunt, it’s also something of a structural mess, a film that seems rather lost and unfocused before finally finding its footing.
Let’s be honest: at this point in the review, you’re probably thinking this all sounds pretty negative, right? Well, with those two massive, noteworthy caveats out of the way, it’s safe to say that I quite enjoyed Ford v Ferrari, both as a blockbuster respite from the emotional heavyweights at the festival and as an old-fashioned drama told on an event movie scale. Through sheer star power and spectacle, Mangold‘s latest overcomes problems that would easily debilitate any other movie. That’s no easy feat.
It’s the early 1960s in America — the height of the Mad Men era — and Henry Ford II (the ever-reliable Tracy Letts) wants to buy Ferrari. The iconic Italian car manufacturer is struggling, and Ford II (also known as “The Deuce”) sees this as an opportunity to build a racing partnership that will be mutually beneficial. The Deuce sends Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) to Italy to broker a deal, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) does not take kindly to this offer. Angry and humiliated, Ford decides on a second option: building a racing team from the ground up.
To build the next great American automobile and win the 24 hour race at Le Mans, Ford turns to Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), a racing icon with the right skill set to beat Ferrari. But it can’t be Shelby behind the wheel — he has a heart condition that prevents him from racing at Le Mans again. For this task, Shelby knows there’s only one man for the job: Ken Miles (Christian Bale), a hot-headed British driver. Despite his prickly personality and disdain for collaboration, Ken is the only one who can build a car better than Ferrari. It’s not an easy road for Shelby and Miles — Ford’s top adviser, Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas), seems hellbent on making sure Miles doesn’t lead the company to the finish line. But even with some internal resistance, the racing world’s heavily accented odd couple —Damon and Bale are laying it on thick here — may just pull off an upset for the ages.
Though it isn’t quite as affectionately curated as the old-school relics of something like Quentin Tarantino‘s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Ford v Ferrari does share a certain kinship with recent nostalgia vehicles. It is steeped in the consumer hallmarks of mid-century Americana: Coke bottles, Ford cars, Coppertone ads, old-school outfits, playful architecture, the list goes on and on. Like Tarantino‘s mid-summer masterpiece, it’s a lament for a bygone era of American life, though in this case it longs for a lost moment of American brilliance: it fondly remembers a time when two men could be handed an impossible task and somehow figure out a way to beat the odds. Unlike Ron Howard‘s Rush — which remains undefeated as the great modern racing movie — Ford v Ferrari has no lingering interest in the psychology of racing. Instead, Mangold wisely reduces the sport to a quest for mechanical perfection, a strategic method of pushing the car to its absolute limits to achieve victory.
Coupled with its love of old-fashioned American style, Ford v Ferrari fully embraces its status as a throwback blockbuster. Though this may require a bit of an interpretive jump, the film as a whole seems to yearn for the pre-Disney days when big-budget films were still made by real craftsmen, telling star-driven stories on a gargantuan scale. Mangold may have made big bucks with two superhero epics, but he’s still one of Tinseltown’s lone gunslingers, pushing to keep an old, theoretically outdated mode of populist cinema alive.
Even with some pretty glaring flaws, it’s hard not to admire Ford v Ferrari for this reason alone.
THE FINAL GRADE: B (7.4/10)
Images courtesy of 20th Century Fox
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