Go in expecting an exhilarating racing story and not a thoughtful human story, and you'll be thrilled

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2019)

There is a lot to love and a lot to be frustrated about in Ford v Ferrari, which seems to be becoming a trend in Mangold movies (except The Wolverine - there's truly nothing to love in that horribly misguided movie). It is certainly an exhilarating car movie and underdog sports movie at its core, and the racing scenes are gorgeous and put the audience right into the driver's seat. It's a tight script which particularly shines in its dialogues between Shelby and the Ford execs or Ken. Bale is absolutely amazing, stealing every scene and injecting joy into all of the racing scenes.
The biggest flaw of the movie is its apparent disinterest in its characters. Shelby is a great example of this - with the background we get early, I wanted some allusion or discussion of how he's devastated he can no longer race but loves being a part of the journey with Ken. None of that was ever implied, and that also gets at a larger and apparently controversial take: Damon's performance was disappointing. He was completely opaque and detached, never successfully selling me the anger with Ford or the love for working with the cars the way Bale did. Some lens into the psychology of the main characters and why racing meant so much to them would've been great. The race ending was fine in showing executive duplicity, but would've been better if we knew anything about the other Ford racers (and truthfully many explanations were left unsaid about how the process worked). The ending, while completely fitting in script, was rushed and sudden, making it less impactful than it deserved.
It's still fun as a sports movie, leaving no moments of boredom while it flies through it's 2:32 runtime, but for a movie that tries to hit emotional notes and focus on its character interactions, I'm perplexed at how no investigation of their characters or themes of dedication to a lifelong passion existed whatsoever. A fun and good movie, but should've been a great one.