A must-see if you are interested in racing (history)

Rating: 6/10 (21 November 2019)

"Ford v Ferrari" is a new American/French co-production that is mostly in the English language and this could be one of the big players this award season. The director is James Mangold and with "Walk the Line" being a personal favorite (also because of the subject) and "Logan" that I also really enjoyed, I was definitely looking forward to his newest project. Mangold was not part of the writing team here this time, but it was nonetheless three people, namely the Butterworth Brothers and Jason Keller. But while none of them are rookies amymore, the only really experienced one here is the older Butterworth. Still looking at the film's massive running time of 2.5 hours, slightly over even, it is not too surprising that there are three writers credited. Must have been a really long script. Now as for the cast, it is basically two names only: Oscar winners Christian Bale and Matt Damon. There are experienced supporting actors in here too and you will maybe recognize their faces such as Bernthal, McKinnon or Letts (plus surprisingly familiar faces from NCIS and Prettly Little Liars in minor roles), but nobody comes remotely close to the star potential of the two in the lead. But they are both Team Ford here and not one of them Ferrari as you could have guessed from the title. Now this is major car racing movie, perhaps the biggest since Rush from over half a decade ago and if you liked that one, then probably you will like this one here as well. However, we are not inside Formula One this time, but instead the focus is on a competitive racing occasion mostly that is probably more famous in the United States and less famous here in Germany. I am talking about Le Mans or (if you want the long version) the 24 Hours of Le Mans, even if there are references to other races too like the one Bale's character needs to win in order to be allowed into Le Mans by Mr. Ford.
So the movie is packed with racing references. However, there are other subjects too like family life, company policies and also the fact that riding sports cars will always be linked very closely to danger, maybe life-threatening danger even. Well certainly the latter. Even today, it is a dangerous sport and back then, it was even more the case. There is that memorable reference on several occasions that as long as you are getting out of the car you are fine. Otherwise... But lets not include further spoilers. Let me just say that the film of course stayed close to reality, so they had to include these developments at the end and certain other parts as well, even if a lot in here was fictitious and added for drama purposes. Which is okay. I knew I was not watching a documentary. For example, while Leo Beebe is not fictitious, but also based on a real person, I genuinely wonder how much about him in here was actually exactly like they showed it. If I was from his family, I probably would not be too happy about the way they depicted things. Aside from that, I thought it was slightly shallow and not too inspired how they depicted him as the antagonist, also with his sucking-up to Mr. Ford for example. The idea behind how he manages to "steal" Bale's character his glory was good though and nice not to have a really happy ending. Now let me also add a few words on the two central characters. As for acting and depth, it is really all about Bale, much more than about Damon. We do not even find out about Damon's family backgrounds and really the only thing we do find out about his background is very early on that he was a successful driver as well, but had to end his career because of health concerns and went into engineering then. And all his baitier scenes are basically also empowered by other characters like the carte blanche moment. It's not a too well-written character and I don't think Damon will get a lot of awards recognition here. If any at all. As for Bale, he may get more because he definitely has the better material and there is no denying he is also the more gifted actor. However, he is as always walking the fine line between really going all in and creating something great and going over-the-top and maybe for his character here he tried to make him too special. But maybe it was just my perception. Or the writing. For example when they are telling the guy about how it is not against the rules to change the brakes, it was a bit painful to watch how Bale was acting in that scene. But he has good moments too no denying and I don't think many actors would have played the part better. Still I did not find him (or Damon's character) as likable as they wanted me to. So all in all, I enjoyed the watch here. The film does not get close to Mangold's (what I mentioned early on), Bale's or Damon's best, but this is just because their best is so amazing and not because this one here would be bad or anything. On the contrary. It is fairly decent and felt shorter than 150 minutes. I give this film a thumbs-up, albeit not a 100% enthusiastic one. Go watch if you like the subject or either of the two lead actors or both would be even better. I am writing this as somebody who does not care too much about racing anymore and never cared about Le Mans, so you definitely don't have to in order to appreciate this film. It has from beginning to end some really nice attention to detail (just wanna mention one scene near the end when Mr. Ferrari briefly pays his respect to Bale's character and there are many other scenes, also slight fun moments like the stopwatch etc.) that makes it certainly worth checking out. Go for it.