Checked out the new racing/business/underdog/sports movie Ford v Ferrari the other day. This is the mostly true story of the time (1966) when Ford decided it wanted to compete against Ferrari by building the fastest, most durable car for the French race 24 Hrs. at LeMans. I say mostly true story since, as I found out later, they embellished some things for the purposes of drama (and humor). But I’ll just take the movie at face value.
The basic story is that Ford marketing didn’t think the brand was sexy enough for the younger generation so they decided to buy Ferrari. But Enzo Ferrari had other ideas and, instead, insulted Henry Ford II directly and the company in general. So Ford decides to build themselves a race car to beat Ferrari and he brings on Carol Schelby (played by Matt Damon) who enlists racer extraordinaire Ken Miles (played by Christen Bail). And now we have legit Hollywood Movie Stars (with a capital M and S) in our racing/business/car building movie.
And this is a pretty great movie that somehow doesn’t require a love of racing/sports movies or any particular knowledge about mechanics and manufacturing of vehicles. It provides just enough knowledge for you to understand what they are doing but otherwise focuses much more heavily on the characters and motivations. Even the races – which are filmed amazingly and are exciting – doesn’t exactly make this a race movie so if that’s not your bag, that doesn’t really matter either. It’s a pretty great tightrope they’re walking to make sure the average person will still get a lot from the movie.
In fact, you can argue this movie is just as much a movie about corporations and corporate back-stabbing which is also a little fascinating too. Because we ostensibly want Ford to win since the protagonists work for them… and that the movie is a bit of an underdog story since Ferrari is sexy and fast and Ford is Ford. But the Ford are kind of the bad guys… and they are a billion dollar company so can’t exactly be underdogs. But since we like Bail and Damon so much, they kind of become a de facto third side to a two-company fight. Can our heroes win this race for a company that we hate? Do we want them to win? Do we want Ferrari to win? Cool balancing act and makes for some good drama and comedy.
Christian Bail is pretty amazing in this movie. His character is a jerk egotistical jerk who doesn’t suffer fools at all. And that’s kind of fun but it would be pretty surface level if that’s all he was. But the script and the actor take pains to let us know he’s a family man who loves his wife and son… so you can see that ego and that temper getting pushed down when he’s around his family. And also when he’s around Matt Damon, a man who he respects but also is often angry with. Damon does a fine job too – but it’s a bit more traditional performance as Damon plays up his good guy persona.
I really enjoyed this flick even though I only had a vague knowledge that any of this story went down. I’m not a big fan of cars or racing in real life but there’s enough everything else in this movie that that doesn’t matter. And the race sequences are just as much about the trials these characters go through than who passes the finish line. I highly recommend this flick to pretty much anyone.
Score: 88