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: "Money Monster"

Just a few thoughts, as our newest talent, Aly Caviness, is handling the main review over at The Film Yap. Make sure to head there to read in its entirety.

"Money Monster" is a well-executed cinematic effort with tightly bookended ambitions. Unlike "The Big Short," it's not trying -- or, if it is, not trying very hard -- to be an all-encompassing indictment of Wall Street and the corruption of modern digitized market trading. It aims for small observations and dramatic tension.

It gives lip service to The System and how bad it is, but then leans on a narrative that makes clear it's a rotten apple or two who are actually mucking things up.

George Clooney plays Lee Gates, the host of the titular television show in which the smart, smarmy personality gives stock tips and ass-kisses the financial masters of the universe, in between embarrassing hip-hop dance moves and weirdo costumes. It's a slight exaggeration of Jim Cramer and his ilk, but only slight.

It's a hostage story in which some dumb mook off the street took Lee's stock advice and lost his entire inheritance from his mother, and now wants revenge, an explanation or an apology.

Directed by Jodie Foster from a screenplay by Jamie Linden, Alan DiFiore and Jim Kouf, "Monster" provides a couple of terrific moments that I appreciated.

The first is when Lee, after first having got over the shock of having his show interrupted by a gunman who straps him into a bomb vest, finally gets around to engaging the guy, a truck driver named Kyle (Jack O'Connell). He's a talker, so he figures he'll talk to the young man. That's when he learns how much Kyle lost: $60,000.

Sixty grand? Lee asks, shocked. You're gonna kill me, maybe die yourself, over chump change like that?

Lee is a man who brags about sharing dinner at an expensive restaurant with at least one other person every night since the 1990s. He's got his millions, three ex-wives, thousand-dollar suits, etc. He's lived at the top so long, he can't even conceive of a working schmoe having to slave away at $14/hour, taking a year to save up the money he'll spend on a weekend getaway.

The second moment is when, trying to verify something allegedly said on his show a few weeks ago, Lee is forced to watch tape of himself played back on the screen. All this is happening, I should mention, on live TV, with Julia Roberts as Patty Fenn, the director in the control booth trying to keep things calm.

Lee watches the playback of himself in some ridiculous outfit, doing a dance a man of his years should not be attempting, saying stuff because it makes for good TV and not because it adds up to an ounce of fiscal sense. Clooney, who shines playing flawed men, gives a little dip of the head, his gaze faltering downward, and we bathe in his confrontation with his own meager worth.

He's a clown who revels at playing the clown, until he's forced to breathe dip the smell of the face paint, and is sickened.

Alas, the rest of the movie falls into predictable patterns. The cops come to take out Kyle, a negotiator is brought in, the action eventually leaves the studio, a weird sort of alliance forms between Lee and his captor, etc. Patty is the level-headed island of calm trying to keep all these vying forces in balance. Roberts is solid, but it's the kind of role any number of actresses could do just as well.

There is a good surprise or two. My favorite is when someone close to Kyle is located and brought in to talk him down, something we've seen many times before, and events do not transpire in any way we expected. For a brief moment, the movie pushes us out on a limb. We're delighted by the feeling of an abyss yawning; but then our steps are nudged back to the safe and dull path.

Dominic West plays the CEO of IBIS, the big corporation whose stock tanked despite Lee's reassurances to his viewers; Caitriona Balfe is the PR chief who goes rogue for reasons unexplored; Giancarlo Esposito is the head of the police force, uttering urgent things we can safely ignore; Lenny Venito is the podunk cameraman who keeps on shooting despite the danger to himself; and Christopher Denham is Lee's flunky producer tasked with anything the boss wants, including trying out an erectile claim before it goes on the market.

"Money Monster" plays out in live time, and Foster is adroit at balancing the tension and danger, stirring the pot when needed and backing off the heat when the audience needs to absorb information or take a breath. The movie also has a pleasing streak of dark humor to it, much of it deriving from Lee's feckless charm.

All the stuff about trading algorithms and international hackers being brought in to help is distracting or strains credulity. But this is the sort of movie where you have to just go along with the ride. It's a day trade of a film, serving its purpose but soon left behind.