Actual racing provides a visceral, visual punch, which I appreciated

Rating: 8/10 (15 November 2019)

This is a sports movie that I want to compare with Borg v McEnroe and perhaps Rocky. And this movie just falls a little short of those movies, for me. Perhaps it is that car-racing requires such complicated mechanics in a team-effort to be successful, as compared to a simpler pathos in one individual's endeavour.
Also, I am wary of a film trying to bring me in with its *wink**wink*intheknow knowlege of cars and jargonist language about cars. It's meant to explain things to a viewer and bring them in, and mock the characters that ought to be mocked (because we're intheknow, and they aren't). For some reason, I was aware of and resisted such attempts. Alongside my experience here, the storyline was adequate and just escaped being hokey, and the characters were adequately pitiable and relatable.
What I was really impressed by was the foregrounding of the LeMans lap, and then visually punching us with that pre-knowledge when the actual race was on. The scenes were visceral and this boosted my rating.
I thought the edit and shots taken and varied between close-up and other were all done well. Would love to compare shots with Logan, Walk the Line or Copland, just to see.
Matt Damon does his best Tommy Lee Jones impression with his voice, I thought. Just throwing that out there.
An alright film, and probably better than other car-racing films. Car-racing? why not, just for this story.