Ford v Ferrari
Run-time: 152 minutes
Directed by: James Mangold
Films that are based upon true stories seemingly always have this invisible cross section of remaining honest to the true story while simultaneously pleasing a film audience with narrative storytelling. Ford v Ferrari follows the true story of American car designer (and ex-race car driver) Carroll Shelby and driver Ken Miles as they battle Ford, Ferrari and the laws of physics to triumph over adversity and win the Le Mans race in France and introduce the world to American engineering. Even though I am not a race-car fan and couldn’t tell you the difference between the Toyota Corolla or a Toyota Aurion that apparently is going to be my Uber after a night out, I found myself enjoying this film. It wasn’t the sexy cars (like the Fast and Furious franchise) or the racing itself (as this was sometimes laborious) but the likeable main characters and performance by Matt Damon and Christian Bale.
The excellent performances of Damon and Bale were by far the stand outs of this film. Damon’s portrayal of Shelby introduced you to a tortured man, no longer in his prime but still harbouring a love of danger and risks. This transfers into his risk taking in business and leads to some interesting choices by his character throughout. Shelby is damaged but you can sense this greater level of honesty and loyalty to his colleagues that comes out in his performance. Bale’s portrayal as Miles was initially grating and came across as an over-the-top caricature of a cockney accent, but as the plot settles in, his character becomes more believable as a simple, yet loveable, mechanic with a love of racing and an understanding of machines like no other.
The plot itself wasn’t incredibly strong. As mentioned above, the film does suffer from this constraint of adhering to the reality of the tale. When I first see Miles and Shelby together in a scene, they both appear to be at some famous race. Shelby is begrudgingly getting out of his trailer and Miles is beating his car boot into submission so he can enter a race. They both seem to be in completely different circles, until they aren’t. There is an assumed history and understanding about these characters that was unfortunately lost on me and I found myself later questioning why Miles was driving for free when he was so damn good. This was obviously something in the history of car racing that enthusiasts would be all over, however it seemed poorly executed from a film standpoint. This doesn’t necessarily harm the enjoyment of the film and when the characters interact, they are incredibly likeable and have great chemistry.
Ironically, for a film that is all about achieving ‘the perfect lap’ and ‘speed’ the runtime did seem a little long in parts. The scenes depicting Daytona were interesting, but it just made me aware that I still wasn’t seeing the final race yet. And even though the Le Mans is a 24-hour race, it still shouldn’t have felt like it was.
I was surprised by how much this film paid homage to the memory of Shelby and Miles as opposed to becoming an over saturated advertisement for Ford and I was actually pleased by its real portrayal of the corporate team at Ford being an adversary in the film. While the film had its issues, overall it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the story and still left me with a sense of satisfaction that Miles’ story was told for the world to hear.
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