Movie Review: "Ford v Ferrari"

"Ford v Ferrari": B+.  I'll admit I had a few reservations about spending good money to see Ford v Ferrari.  First of all, I found the film's title to be rather blah.  But then I remembered you can't judge a book by its cover, so the same precept must apply to movies.  Secondly, I'm not a big auto racing fan.  Watching guys making left turns for two hours is not a big turn on for me, even if they are approaching the speed of sound.  But then I remembered the key race is LeMans where the unique, eight and a-half mile track requires right turns as well; plus, the event is an all-day-and-night proposition.  Thirdly, I was concerned that the automotive jargon would pose a language barrier.  I don't know a piston from a crankshaft or a shock from a strut.  But then I figured this immensely popular movie is probably being viewed, and praised, by other people like me whose mechanical know-how amounts to being able to read a dip stick.  Oh, and regarding that "good money" I was hesitant to part with?  My ticket cost a grand total of $2.50 at the Hopkins Theater.

Ford v Ferrari is a buddy movie of sorts, and the two leading men are nearly perfect.  Matt Damon is Carroll Shelby, known among industry professionals as a world class automobile designer.  Christian Bale is Ken Miles, one of a select group of drivers whose uncanny, intangible instincts give him an accurate assessment of how his car will perform under race conditions when he calls on his machine to rise to the next level. Miles is also an astute strategist, banking on his unmatched big race experience to know when to lie back and when to throttle his adversary.

The story abounds with villains, or at least men who are at odds with the aspirations of our two heroes.  My favorite adversaries, naturally, are the Italians, led by Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone).  He negotiates with Ford Motor Company's representatives, led by none other than future Ford president and Chrysler Corporation CEO Lee Iaccoca (Jon Bernthal).  Ford is trying to form a merger with Ferrari.  The proposed deal falls apart ostensibly over post-merger control issues relating to future races, but it's possible if not likely that Enzo is simply playing Iacocca to get a better deal from Fiat.  The sly, cunning Enzo not only dismisses the Ford representatives with a waive of his hand, but hurls insults at its CEO, Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), aka "Deuce," who has remained home in Detroit.  When word of Enzo's personal invective gets back to Deuce, its Game On.

Deuce and Iacocca are counting on Shelby to steer Ford's racing division to international glory.  Shelby is reluctant to take the job mostly because the corporate bureaucracy would interfere with how Shelby prefers to conduct business.  When Deuce assures Shelby that he will only have to answer to one executive, Shelby accepts the challenge.   Shelby naively assumes that the one big shot will be Deuce himself. Wrong. Enter the conniving Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas), an executive vice president of Ford.  The "one guy" Deuce promised to Shelby as his only boss turns out to be Beebe, who throws one roadblock after another into Shelby and Miles' way.

The film is based on the true story of how Shelby and Miles combine to help Ford Motor Company reach the pinnacle of international auto racing, putting it in the same lofty stratum as Ferrari.  Therefore, when director James Mangold chronicles many singular moments and incidences which seem too far fetched, we wonder if those things really happened, or if they're products of Hollywood fiction whose purpose is to add to the intensity of their respective scenes.  For example, when Shelby needs to convince Deuce that not just any ol' race car driver can get the job done, but rather someone with the rare talent and experience of Miles, Shelby takes Deuce on a death-defying high speed chase around an airport tarmac.  Deuce, a proud and cocky "suit," is reduced to tears of fear.  It is no doubt an exciting minute or two on film, and provides Letts an opportunity to show some range versus the impression he had theretofore exhibited playing the part of Deuce, but I doubt the race car romp actually happened. I also seriously doubt that Shelby would go so far as to wager ownership of his own company, Shelby American, on the outcome of the Daytona 500, but in Ford v Ferrari, that's what happens.  Finally, do racers hurtling side-by-side at speeds exceeding two hundred miles an hour really stare each other down making menacing faces?  Miles and Ferrari's driver, Lorenzo Bandini (Francesco Bauco), make a habit of it.  Well, their focus may have been lacking but at least they weren't texting, perhaps only because cell phones were still thirty years into the future.

It turns out I should not have worried about being clueless regarding the use of automotive intricacies.  Director Mangold must have had viewers like me in mind when he chose the kind of racing dilemmas to film.  For example, when Miles can't get the door of his racing car to stay closed, one of the engineers in the pit crew, Phil Remington (Ray McKinnon), bludgeons the door shut with a mallet.  Problem solved.  That I could understand!  When there are problems with Miles' brakes, the crew simply replaces the entire brake system rather than extricating and replacing the faulty part.  If you, the viewer, knew nothing at all about the innards of brake systems, it made no difference here.  There are continual cautious references to 7,000 RPM.  We are alerted that if a driver forces his engine to exceed that threshold, expect bad things to happen.  Foreshadowing?  Again, easily decipherable, especially since the camera shows us the RPM level on the dashboard plenty of times.

There are a smattering of minor negatives which detract from the quality of Ford v Ferrari.  How many times do we need to see the drivers stomping on their accelerators or manipulating their gear shifts? There is an overdose of Miles' family reacting to the race they are watching on their little televisions back home.  And most importantly, the last ten minutes of this 152 minute movie are arguably trite and unnecessary.  Nevertheless, I was very impressed with the performances of Damon and especially Bale.  Whatever deficiencies may be present, I can say without reservation that I was entertained, thanks to a large extent to those two gifted actors.