Speed and Power

Hollywood releases any number of biopics over the course of a year. Many of these are meant as Oscar-bait, films that tackle some "serious" subject in an attempt for a studio to get awards and chase that "real dramatic movie" hype. Most of the time it's some singer or performer who went through the standard ups-and-downs that can be mapped to the uses Hollywood template, all so an actor get try to go "method" and embody them, garnering awards for everyone involved. It's drivel, through and through.

Ford v Ferrari, the story of the Ford motor-company and their attempts to take on Ferrari at Le Mans in the mid-to-late 1960s, is Hollywood drivel. It has all the hallmarks of the standard Hollywood template: a simple, basic premise; a rushed sense of time over which the events occur; and a generally cheap "Hollywood ending" that glosses over the hardships of the true story. Okay, maybe in this case that last fact doesn't quite apply, but everything else about this film follows that same Hollywood biopic formula.

Question is: does that matter. Yes, this film is a cheap attempt to pull at heartstrings and get people invested in a historical story they might not know. But, as directed by James Mangold (of The Wolverine and Logan fame), the film manages to also be crowd-pleasing and, at times, exciting. It's a total Hollywood product, and any resemblance to actual historical fact is thrown out the door early, but it's also a lot of fun to watch and, sometimes, that's really all that matters.

In the film, Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), head of Ford, is disappointed as he feels his company is stagnant. One of his underlings, Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal), convinces the big man to get into racing (not just NASCAR but high-end motor-sport). When their initial plan to buy Ferrari goes tits-up, as Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) fucks them around to get a better deal from Fiat, the Ford guys decide to bury Ferrari at their own game and produce a car that will beat the Italian company at their own turf: the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Enter Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), the one-time racer (and only American to win at Le Mans) turned car designer. He gets tapped by Iacocca to design a Ford that will win at Le Mans. Shelby then turns to the only man he knows that could drive the race and beat Ferrari, prickly gear-head Ken Miles (Christian Bale). And thus begins a year-and-a-half long quest to build a car good enough to beat Ferrari, all while fighting off the Ford leadership so they can actually have a real shot at pulling this off properly.

I noted above that this film lack historical accuracy. I am not a car guy so the details of what actually happened during this time period are beyond me (although there are plenty of articles out there that discuss how realistic, or not, this story may be). What is pretty clear is that the producers picked what they wanted to cover about this story and dismissed anything that got in the way of their "perfect" story. The focus is on the Americans (as this is an American-made film), with the Italians treated as villains. Needless to say, in any story, the reality was likely much more nuanced than all that.

Even when it comes to the racing it's pretty clear a lot of liberties are taken. Cars magically catch up within seconds, whole chunks of races are cut out to make things much more "tight", and over all everything about the racing sequences is stylized and over-dramatized to fit the proper "Hollywood feel". If you want a film that depicts the history of this story, and does it with accurate racing, Ford v Ferrari is likely not the film for you. This is Hollywood drivel, through and through.

And yet, I found myself caught up in it. I divorced myself pretty early on from the idea that this was in any way accurate; once I viewed it as a total work of fiction I found I was able to get into the movie. Seeing these guys racing, building, and racing again felt no different than any other sci-fi racing film, like the podracing in Star Wars: Episode I, except a whole lot more fun to watch. As a work of fiction, the movie is light, breezy, and entertaining, you just have to shut your brain off.

A lot of the credit here should go to Bale and Damon. These two have an easy, working-buddies chemistry, and the friendship they put forward between their two characters works really, really well. Of course, both of them are given characters that they could play in their sleep. Christian Bale is a prickly dude in real life and he's given a prickly dude to play in this film as well. Damon, meanwhile, is doing another riff on the standard Damon performance, seen in films like Invictus and The Martian. He's good at this friendly, charming, self-effacing role and it works just as well here.

I wouldn't say there's anything surprising about this film (except maybe the ending which is true to real life but does spoil the Hollywood ending just a little). It does follow the standard cyclical formula of every Hollywood biopic, but between the solid acting and good direction it's at least a well made product of the Hollywood machine. It's not a film you have to over-think, but it is one that can draw you in and get you invested... so long as you just don't take it at all seriously. It's not that kind of movie.

I'm not a car guy so the idea of a proper film about Ford and Ferrari bores me to tears. This is not that film, either. This is a total crowd pleaser meant to entertain and fade away. It does all that just fine, and it does it well for two hours. Afterward you may not think about it again, but for those two hours Ford v Ferrari will draw you in and give you just enough entertainment you won't leave disappointed. I just don't expect you'll ever think about watching it again afterwards.