A well-made, overly long, utterly predictable and formulaic feelgood underdog story that has been done to death

Rating: 6/10 (21 November 2019)

Ford v Ferrari is a well-made, well-shot film with some very good acting. It is also an utterly boring, predictable, by-the-numbers sports/competition success story, and that is its damning flaw. The plot contains almost conceivable cliche that can be found in this sort of movie, hitting all the usual story beats. A hastily-assembled crew of outcasts being given a seemingly impossible task against an unbeatable sports rival, dealing with their personal problems and struggling against the interference of smug, suited corporate figures who do not like the fact that our heroes are not types who play by the book, and growing as characters along the way. Directing-wise, this plot comes with all the usual accoutrements, the most obvious of which is montages where the team of underdogs progress in their quest.
The result is a movie where one can easily guess all the plot points and how the next scene is going to play out. Even the lighthearted, comedic moments happen exactly the way such scenes happen in every other movie of this kind. All of this especially becomes a problem when it is far longer than it should be. And despite the bloated runtime, some story elements somehow remain underwhelming. We know that the main characters are good friends simply because the script pretty much tells us so, but this is not properly set up. Some of the context and the events that drive the story forward are difficult to figure out, although this may be less so for viewers who are familiar with the racing context and the real-life events. In addition, it is sad that for a movie titled Ford v Ferrari, we never really see the events from the Italians' side, who remain bumbling foes beset by their overconfidence throughout the film.
All of this is not the say that the movie is not well-made. It is, despite the obvious CGI-y look of some of the racing scenes, and this is pretty much the reason behind my 6/10 score. If you are a diehard racing fan, or -for whatever reason- have never seen a sports/competition movie of this kind, you might really like it. Otherwise, the redeeming qualities of the picture are not enough to save it from being pretty much a total bore.