Video review: "Ford v Ferrari"

Sports movies are seldom big hits, and car racing movies in particular have historically been seen as box office poison. Even rarer still is for such films to receive praise from their peers in the form of industry awards.

“Ford v Ferrari” is that exceptional success story, a truly terrific racing movie that sold a lot of tickets and got four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. It’s certainly one of my favorite movies of 2019.

One of the reasons this film is so enjoyable is that while the racing scenes are directed very well by James Mangold, they’re not the heart of the movie. That’s the relationship between Caroll Shelby (Matt Damon), an ex-racer and struggling designer, and stubborn British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale).

These are very different men, at least upon first glance. Shelby is an affable cowboy/gearhead who’s a natural leader. He knows when to stand tall and when to compromise, which he knows he must do in accepting the lead of Ford Motor Company’s nascent racing team. Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) wants to show up his nemesis, Enzo Ferrari, who has dominated the 24 Hours of Le Mans, winning seven of the last eight races.

On the other side of the coin is Miles, who is an independent-minded purist. All he wants is to run the best race possible in the best car he can pull together – which he often does, by himself, with spare parts. He has to be convinced – pushed, literally – to accept the job of lead driver for Ford.

In the end, these two men forged an everlasting bond while accomplishing one of the greatest feats in sports history… even if it’s one most people have never heard of before.

Remember when the Americans beat the Soviet Union in hockey at the Olympics? The Russians were mere pikers when it came to dominating their sport like the Italians had Le Mans.

The screenplay by Jason Keller, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth is tight as a snare drum, despite the 2½-hour running time. Terrific supporting performances bolster the tale, including Caitriona Balfe, Ray McKinnon, Josh Lucas and Jon Bernthal.

The script didn’t get an Oscar nomination, which seems like an oversight, while Bale getting snubbed in the Best Supporting Actor category will go down as one of the Academy’s bigger flubs. “Ford v Ferrari” goes as fast and as far as any speed flick ever has.

There aren’t a lot of video extras, but what they have is substantive. There’s a pre-visualization of the race sequences used to map out the action beforehand; “The 24 Hour Le Mans: Recreating the Course” featurette, which looks at how archival footage was used to reconstruct the track; and “Bringing The Rivalry to Life,” a one-hour documentary on the making of the film.

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Review: "Ford v Ferrari"

If you’re a serious car person you know the story of Carroll Shelby and Le Mans. If you’re not, you’ve probably never heard of it.

Within the fairly niche-y segment of non-NASCAR auto racing, it’s considered one of the greatest legends in sports history. For car enthusiasts, Shelby’s name is spoken with hushed reverence. Most others ask who she is.

Short version: Shelby, a retired racer and struggling sports car designer, was tabbed by Ford Motor Company to take on Ferrari in the iconic 24 Hours of Le Mans race in the mid-1960s. The Italians were the storied Goliaths, having won seven of the last eight races, while Ford and the Americans were upstart Davids elbowing into a European racing culture that looked down their nose at them.

(No hints who came out on top.)

“Ford v Ferrari” is the absolutely terrific film chronicling that monumental endeavor. Aside from just being one of the best movies of the year, it triumphs on two distinct levels.

For initiates it’s a chance to bask in an engrossing story about figures who are new to them – sort of like “Rudy” or “Hoosiers.” For us gearheads, it’s a chance to discover a new aspect of the tale: the strange and strong bond between Shelby and his lead driver, Englishman Ken Miles.

Matt Damon and Christian Bale play Shelby and Miles, respectively, and it’s this pairing that really makes the movie find its highest gear. Like the criminally overlooked racing drama from a few years races themselves.

Damon’s Shelby is a plain-spoken, cowboy hat-wearing achiever who runs his own shop after heart troubles forces his retirement from racing after winning the 1959 Le Mans. He’s recruited by Ford to take on Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone) and his racing team after Ford's offer to buy out the Italian company is rudely rejected.

As Miles, Bale has a sort of hunched-over, puckish charm. He’s got top-tier skills as a driver, but his independent attitude have led him to the bottom of the racing pile. No team will sponsor him, he barely ekes out a living running a one-man mechanic shop, though he still scores some wins in heaps he puts together from spare parts.

Shelby recognizes a kinship between them, though Miles is slower to commit. They are not so much attracted to speed as compelled by the need for it. Shelby is willing to negotiate the compromises and politics of working for a huge company, but Miles is the stubborn purist.

The only thing Miles craves is to drive the perfect lap with no mistakes – and then, another.

Ford Motor Company… does not come off looking great here. They’re depicted as a huge, uncaring monolith run by Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), a magisterial egotist who’s willing to dump $9 million into developing a groundbreaking car, the GT40, just to show up Ferrari.

Jon Bernthal plays Lee Iacocca, the enterprising marketing guy at Ford who suggests tackling Le Mans and puts the pieces into motion. Josh Lucas is the heavy as Leo Beebe, the weasely #2 man at Ford who loathes Miles and continually works to undermine him – even if it means detonating their chances at the race.

Other members of the great supporting cast include Caitriona Balfe as Miles’ wife, Mollie, who stares at things straight on with wide open eyes and demands the truth; Noah Jupe as their son, Peter, who bears witness to the storytelling; and Ray McKinnon as the sage old mechanic who rejects computer testing of cars in favor of yarn and masking tape.

Indianapolis native Jason Keller wrote the original screenplay, which batted around Hollywood for a while and once had Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt attached. Brother screenwriters Jez and John-Henry Butterworth added a polish.

Director James Mangold (“Wolverine”) and his technical crew do a fabulous job with the racing scenes, from the staggering crashes to the screeching soundscape. Unlike American style races where drivers turn left for a few hours, Le Mans is an eight-mile endurance test on real roads that spans from day to night and back again, with drivers swapping out every few hours.

I adored the way Miles keeps up an ongoing dialogue between himself and the car, a sort of pace-setting patter prior to the days of radio communication between racer and pit crew. With his British lilt and colorful language, we get lovingly off-kilter dialogue, like the car “still feels like a bag of squirrels.”

I’ve complained a lot about overlong films of late, but “Ford v Ferrari” earns every second of its 152 minutes. This is one of those rare movies with an epic scale but a very intimate feel. It should chase some trophies.

Review: "Mirror, Mirror"

There was nothing about "Mirror, Mirror" that I hated, but there was also nothing that I really loved. I like the idea behind this movie, but am largely indifferent to the movie they did make.

Director Tarsem Singh Dhandwar and screenwriters Melissa Wallack and Jason Keller seemed to have set out to make a dizzyingly funny, satirical take on the classic "Snow White" fable by the Brothers Grimm. But the film repeatedly steps back from pure comedy and goes for amusing and charming. You can almost hear the studio honchos whispering in their ear, "Remember the 18-35 female demographic."

The tone is less "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and more "Ella Enchanted." I think they should have given up on the sweet, mushy parts and gone for the Full Gilliam. Actually, I'm sort of piqued to see what Terry Gilliam could have done with this material and budget.

As you probably know, this is the first of two Snow White adaptations arriving in theaters this year. Later we get the dark-and-scary version, "Snow White and the Huntsman," where Snow gets into knife fights and wears more grime than ball gowns. Personally, I was much more looking forward to this one.

Julia Roberts plays the evil queen and serves as narrator, telling us right from the start that this is her story, not Snow's. That's not really true, but it should have been -- Roberts is easily the best thing about the movie. Instead of the whole cruel-and-evil stepmother gig, Roberts plays the queen as an over-spoiled movie star, toying with her vassals and using her vast powers to keep herself sitting pretty. She doesn't so much like ruling the kingdom as being the center of attention.

By contrast, Snow is a drab and flat character. As played by Lilly Collins, she's a castle shut-in who years for her long-lost father, who married the queen and then disappeared chasing a mythical beast in the forest. For a post-feminist princess, she's rather passive, only taking action after various male figures urge her to take up arms.

The prince here is Alcott, played by Armie Hammer as a vainglorious but good-hearted guy who gets caught between Snow and the queen. The queen wants to marry him and claim his vast wealth to refill her kingdom's empty coffers, but Alcott seems totally unaware of her erstwhile ardor. He's smitten by Snow instead, but then she disappears and takes up with the Dwarves.

The minimalist seven are a hoot, and the filmmakers actually manage to imbue each of them with some distinct personality. Danny Woodburn plays Grimm, the world-weary leader. Martin Klebba is Butcher, who's hardcore and wears a cowboy hat. Grub (Joe Gnoffo) is a big eater, Chuckles (Ronald Lee Clark) is a giggler and Wolf (Sebastian Saraceno) is the bruiser. Jordan Prentice adds a little soul as Napoleon, and Half Pint (Mark Povinelli) has an amusing, unrequited crush on Snow.

The dwarves in this iteration are itinerant highwaymen who live in the forest and rob travelers. They wear funky stilts that can expand and retract like accordions, turning them into giants who leap and twist about like Cirque du Soleil performers gone medieval.

The movie's version of the magic mirror is strange, and a little confusing. Instead of it being a mirror in her castle with a face that the queen converses with, she steps through a mirror into another dimension. She surfaces on a giant lake or ocean where some wooden huts have been built. Inside is the mirror with the magical spirit who is her servant, but looks like her own reflection -- though without any wrinkles, it wryly notes.

"They're not wrinkles! They're ... crinkles," the queen pouts adorably. One of the running jokes is that the queen is in denial about her own aging -- she insistently tells the prince that he and she are "about the same age" -- and kudos to Roberts for bravely tweaking her fading ingenue status.

So Snow joins up with the dwarves, becoming a thief, though a good-hearted one who returns the people's taxes to them. As is the staple in these sorts of movies, she also manages to become an expert swordsman over the course of a single musical interlude and montage.

My biggest problem with "Mirror, Mirror" is that it contained no surprises for me. Once you've established the slightly fractured take on the fairy tale -- which one can get just from watching the trailer -- all the story elements and character arcs fall neatly and predictably into place. Even the oft-referenced Beast in the forest contained no secrets, as I guessed his final disposition before we ever even see him.

"Mirror, Mirror" certainly isn't a bad movie, and there are a few wickedly funny moments and some glimpses of inspired characterizations. Alas, this spell only works sporadically.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Machine Gun Preacher"

"Machine Gun Preacher" is one of those stories that if it wasn't based on reality, few people would buy it.

Gerard Butler plays Sam Childers, a biker hoodlum who goes straight after discovering Jesus, and builds a church across the street from his house for sinners like himself. This would be enough for most movies, but for "Preacher" it's a mere jumping-off point: Sam goes to Uganda, is repulsed by the bloody civil war spilling over there from Sudan, and dedicates his life to establishing and protecting an orphanage.

But Sam is no pacifist "lamb of God" type of preacher -- he believes the Lord wants not sheep, but wolves with teeth who can fight the evildoers. The film's title is not just hyperbole: Sam gets into frequent firefights, and mows down more bad guys than the first couple of Rambo flicks.

Director Marc Forster ("Finding Neverland") and screenwriter (and Indianapolis native) Jason Keller curiously do not focus too much on the right or wrong of this American bringing the fight to the rebels, who kill wantonly and kidnap children to fight for them as enslaved soldiers. It's more an interior exploration of Sam, and the toll a life of such fierce commitment to a cause takes on his family and psyche.

The bad guys are referred to as simply the LRA, but after a bit of Googling I discover that stands for Lord's Resistance Army. It turns out the Sudanese rebels, led by self-described mystic Joseph Kony, are Christians who follow an apocalyptic form of the religion based on a particularly harsh (mis)interpretation of the Ten Commandments.

This would make for an interesting dichotomy, the two holy men each fighting for their version of the Bible. Forster and Keller briefly flirt with this direction, personified by a female doctor who points out that Kony started out much as Sam did, professing to save the members of his flock from the depravity of the other side.

But as soon as "Machine Gun Preacher" looks like it's going to tackle some tough issues, and really put its protagonist under a microscope, it pulls back and settles for familiar tropes, such as Sam's wife (Michelle Monaghan) calling to complain that he never spends time with his family, they're running out of money, etc.
Not 30 minutes earlier, she was telling Sam to suck it up after the rebels burned down the orphanage, calling it a test from God and to just build it all over again.

Michael Shannon adds a few notes as Donnie, Sam's former running buddy who can't shake off the lure of drugs and crime as easily as Sam did. But his character flits in and out of the story in a seemingly arbitrary way.

Butler is a fiery presence as Sam, and some of the scenes where he witnesses the atrocities of war -- one woman is brought in to the clinic with her lips hacked off, for having talked back to rebel soldiers -- have a genuine visceral punch.

But for much of the time, "Machine Gun Preacher" is curiously flat and wandering. It seems to think that by simply presenting the reality of a colorful man, you don't need to do anything else.

2 stars out of four