Review of the film "Ford v Ferrari" 2019
I won’t say that I’m an ardent fan of racing, cars and everything that goes with it. But nevertheless, the film, based on real events about the friendship of an automobile designer and a reckless driver, as well as their joint opposition to the fastest automobile concern in particular and corporate culture in general, interested me extremely. Therefore, I didn’t want to miss such a spectacle on the big screen. What came of this film?
It's the 60s and somewhere in Detroit, the owner of the Ford company, Henry Ford II, comes out to the workers and announces that he will close the plant to hell if no one offers him a brilliant idea on how to save the company. It is worth mentioning here that the film completely ignores the events preceding this performance. The fact is that at the end of the 50s, the Edsel subsidiary, named after the son of Henry Ford II and which had a whole line of new cars that, for a number of reasons, did not recoup the investment costs, failed loudly. Actually, in order to somehow rehabilitate himself, Ford needed new ideas. Manager Lee Iacocca offered to try his hand at racing and for this it was worth (ha, just) buying Ferrari, which was on the verge of bankruptcy. True, the owner of the company, Enzo Ferrari, not only refused, but also dealt a blow to Ford’s pride, to which he responded by indispensably participating in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. To ensure victory, he hired auto designer Carroll Shelby to help create the best racing car based on Ford. Well, in order to bring the design to fruition and bring it to the finish line before others, he needed a special driver, who became his old friend Ken Miles, who had a harsh disposition, but understood cars like no other.
The plot can hardly be called original, but within the framework of a sports drama it works perfectly. The scriptwriters introduce the viewer into a state of comfortable perception of what is happening and pour out the exact amount of required ingredients. Here is a designer who has retired from racing, but has not lost his love for cars. Here is a racer with a warm heart, a beloved wife and an endlessly admiring son. Here you have a whole range of top managers of a large company, all the time putting a spoke in the wheels of the supposedly good main characters. Here is a team of rivals with Italian cheekbones and bushy eyebrows, looking sideways at you through the side window of an overtaking sports car. All components are in their place, mixed evenly and attract attention at the right moment, which becomes an important aspect in light of the 2.5-hour running time. As a result, you may not know anything about racing, about cars, about the rules of participation, but nevertheless you will get your dose of drama, comedy, adrenaline-fuelled pursuit and sincere relationships. The dialogues are written with skill and perfectly juggle specific terms - the plus of all this is that even people who are far from cars and racing will still understand what is being said.
Director James Mangold (“Logan”) relied on the male duet of Christian Bale and Matt Damon, and he was right. The lion's share of the film's pleasure lies in the sincere interaction between the two characters, each of whom is attractive, charming and disgusting in their own way. In a sense, this is yet another story of the primacy of purpose and passion over common sense and other values, including family, friends, work and one’s own life.
Without going too much into the technical details of the cars, Mangold managed to maintain the rhythm even during relatively calm episodes with a variety of jokes and unexpected antics of the characters. Just look at the scene in the hangar, where Ken was left tinkering with the cars, while he closely followed the radio broadcast of the race, constantly commenting on what was happening.
Well, when it comes to the racing itself, here the director turns up the dynamics to the fullest - pedal to the floor, gear shifting and death capsules rushing at speed, which compete with each other in the ingenuity of design features and the volume of the roar of the engines. By the way, watching this without surround theater sound means missing out on almost the main advantage of the film. The roar of local sports cars is simply fascinating.
Matt Damon (“In Short”) played Carroll Shebley, a former racer who left adrenaline racing in the past after a bad diagnosis from doctors. He perfectly plays Shelby the friend, Shelby the boss, and Shelby the subordinate, driven into a corner by bureaucratic files. And all this in one film! And each of his hypostases has its place and time. And it’s impossible to describe how much calm humor he adds.
Christian Bale (“Vice”), who plays racer Ken Miles, once again shows the wonders of transformation, losing tens of kilograms for the role of an emotional driver. Moreover, here Bale plays with his face like never before and expresses a couple of grimaces more than half of the secondary characters say in the entire film. It turns out to be quite a difficult task not to be imbued with Ken’s slight madness, which means the actor coped with the role one hundred percent.
At all
In the film, many elements are done exactly right. The right balance, the right 60s American vibe, the right accents and the right villains. It's no joke - the main brute turns out to be the office manager, who is driven by the infringed sense of dignity of his boss's company. That is, he acts one way and no other because he sincerely believes in the spirit of the company and what it represents. And he physically dislikes Ken Miles because he doesn't fit into the "Ford Man" mold.
"Ford v Ferrari" is a good, and in some places even excellent, film about racing, drivers and a bunch of accompanying corporate politics. Despite the long running time of two and a half hours, the film looks like a breeze, alternating between personal drama, professional courage and a corporate approach. It is the competent balance between all the elements that holds you tightly to the screen and does not let go until the credits. The luxurious acting duo of Matt Damon and Christian Bale looks as limited as possible, and Bale speaks more with his facial expressions than half of the characters speak. If this is not a reason to check out the film, then I don’t know.
