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: "Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House"

How do you portray a person whose most notable attribute was remaining an enigma?

That’s the challenge facing the long-gestating cinematic portrayal of Mark Felt, the FBI lifer who was eventually revealed to be “Deep Throat,” a key source to the Washington Post stories on Watergate by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, which more than anything else helped end the cancerous presidency of Richard Nixon.

For writer/director Peter Landesman (“Concussion”), the answer is you cast a powerhouse actor in the lead role, show the Watergate saga from the perspective of the government investigators, present a dizzying gallery of players inside and outside the FBI, and hope for the best.

The result, “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House,” is a noble effort that doesn’t quite sing. The film ends up getting caught in the minutia of the investigation, rather than exploring the moral quandary of Washington’s rot, and why a loyal company man like Felt was compelled to speak up (if not out).

Liam Neeson, decked out in a snowy hairpiece and ‘70s executive suits, manages to resemble Felt a wee bit. He’s obviously practiced the real man’s stiff, formal speaking cadence -- though this was maybe a time when it might have been wiser to personify rather than impersonate a historical figure.

(For a contrasting example, see Chadwick Boseman’s brash take on Thurgood Marshall in “Marshall.”)

As the story opens in 1972, Nixon seems to be riding a wave to easy reelection when the Watergate break-in and arrests occur. Almost right away, Felt, the number two man at the FBI, understands the potential for the scandal to go right to the top of the White House hierarchy. He gears up his forces to investigate the crime without fear or favor to any potential consequences.

But then FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover dies after five decades at the top. Felt would seem to be the natural choice to take the director’s chair, but White House flunky L. Patrick Gray is tapped instead. Gray is played by Marton Csokas, who practically seems to drip oily servility. In short order, Felt is instructed to wrap up the Watergate investigation toot suite, and is told who he can and cannot interview.

Felt starts dropping clues for journalists to pick up the thread, including Sandy Smith (Bruce Greenwood) at Time magazine and Woodward (Julian Morris). As his frustration grows, so does the level of detail in his leaks. Soon, on top of the Watergate investigation Felt is charged with discovering the leaker.

Felt eventually outed himself as Deep Throat in 2005, when ill health and the encouragement of his family nudged him to seek a book deal. (Upon which this film is partially based.) Many people had speculated over the years that Felt may have been the Post source, with the shorthand justification being that he was an ambitious man who felt snubbed at not getting the top job.

The film takes a more nuanced approach, suggesting that Felt was less offended over his own status than the injurious tactics the Nixon administration employed against a government agency whose mission he held sacred. On several occasions he brazenly tells White House power brokers, such as chief counsel John Dean (Michael C. Hall), that they have no authority over the FBI, which he declares a completely autonomous agency.

Given today’s political contretemps, such an assertion seems comedically archaic.

An important subplot to the tale, which isn’t well known, is that Felt’s own daughter, Joan, had disappeared during this time. He and his wife, Audrey (Diane Lane), searched desperately for her, fearing she may have thrown in with the Weather Underground, a radical group that he himself had been investigating.

Just how good was Mark Felt at keeping a secret? Let’s put it this way: when he was later put on trial for violating the civil rights of Weather Underground associates -- and convicted, then pardoned -- one of the people who donated to Felt’s legal fund was Richard Nixon.

That sounds like the sort of guy whose head you’d like to get inside. Alas, while “Mark Felt” is an interesting exploration of Watergate’s flip side, the man in the middle remains a riddle.

Video review: "J. Edgar"

For a biopic about one of the most polarizing political figures of the 20th century, “J. Edgar” is a curiously flat affair. It’s got great production values, a standout performance by Leonardo DiCaprio, and generally feels like a great big chunk of Hollywood ham.

The central thesis of screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and director Clint Eastwood is that J. Edgar Hoover, who wielded enormous power for five decades as head of the FBI, was secretly a closeted gay man who carried on a lifelong chaste love affair with Clyde Tolson, his best friend and right-hand man.

This may or may not be true – the historical evidence for Hoover’s alleged homosexuality is sketchy at best. Those who knew him best say his relationship with Tolson was close but brotherly. And the now-ubiquitous characterization of his penchant for cross-dressing is based on an account of a single event by a convicted perjurer.

But the great truth the filmmakers miss is that even if Hoover was attracted to men, this would be the least interesting thing about him as a person.

The story slips forward and backward in time, portraying how Hoover’s passion for collecting secrets, and leveraging them to gain political power, was his way of misdirecting others from exposing his own (as he saw them) weaknesses.

Some of the supporting roles seem oversized, while others are desperately short-shrifted. The most notable is Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), whom young Hoover proposed marriage to on their third date. She demurred, but agreed to become his personal secretary, a position she would hold for the next five decades.

Gandy is omnipresent but unimportant, someone who lurks in the background until the filmmakers feel a need for Hoover to have a moment of self-reflection.

“J. Edgar” is a fine-looking movie and generally well-acted. But ultimately the film employs the underhanded tactics of its subject: using shadowy whisperings about Hoover's personal life to paint a skewed portrait of his public one.

Video extras are the same for Blu-ray and DVD editions, and are limited to a single featurette, “J. Edgar: The Most Powerful Man in the World.”

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 1.5 stars

Review: "J. Edgar"

"J. Edgar" is a curiously flat biopic for one of the most polarizing figures of the 20th century. J. Edgar Hoover was either one of the greatest innovators in the field of law enforcement or a power-mad tyrant, depending on who you ask. Clint Eastwood's new drama tends more toward the latter than the former, though it seems clear the great director has some admiration, or at least healthy respect, for Hoover's perseverance and resolve.

No one who becomes the head of a federal agency while still in his 20s, and remains in that post for nearly 50 years, transforming the very face of law enforcement in the process, can be easily dismissed.

The film's period production values are stupendous, seamlessly transitioning from 1919 to the early 1970s without ever missing a beat of authenticity. The suits, cars, decor and more appear spiffy and spot-on without screaming 'look at me.'

The make-up used to transform Leonardo DiCaprio into Hoover is also pretty spectacular. The actor bears little resemblance to the real man, but by giving him woolly hair, a thickening of the middle (some weight gain by DiCaprio augmented by padding, methinks) and enlarging his pupils, they manage to suggest the essence of Hoover without attempting a rote imitation.

DiCaprio's performance is solid, too, portraying a man driven to continually find fault in others as a defense mechanism for avoiding confrontation with his own weaknesses. There's even a scene suggesting that young Johnny Hoover stammered as a child, and acquired his iconic rapid-fire speech pattern through endless drills to correct his stutter. His mother (Judi Dench) appears in fits and starts, as a devout woman who pushed her son in ways subtle and not-so-subtle to always strive for more.

I cannot say I think much of the central theme of Dustin Lance Black's screenplay, which is that Hoover was a closeted gay who had a lifelong platonic love affair with Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer), his number two at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tolson is portrayed as a fairly progressive and self-aware gay man, who acknowledges his feelings for Edgar to himself even as he is savvy enough to realize he can't do so publicly.

There's one big scene where Tolson throws a fairly extreme hissy fit when Hoover tells him he's thinking of marrying an actress, and they have a fistfight while dressed in their nightclothes that turns into a make-out session and a huge emotional explosion. It's a bold scene, full of energy and exuberance, and feels like total bullshit.

The historical case that Hoover was homosexual is sketchy at best -- he and Tolson spent most of their meals and vacations together, etc. Most biographies say no, and Mark Felt, the number three man at the FBI (who later revealed himself to be the infamous "Deep Throat" to Woodward & Bernstein) insisted their affection was genuine but brotherly.

The whole cross-dressing thing -- which is absurdly addressed in a scene where Hoover mourns in his mother's dress after her death -- is likely a figment. It was based on an account by one woman, a notorious socialite who was a convicted perjurer, but has managed to seep into the communal consciousness as truth.

Personally, I don't find it very interesting to explore if J. Edgar Hoover was gay or not. Even if he did secretly favor men, it would be the least interesting thing about him as a person. The secretive, power-hungry figure who dangled presidents and others wandering the corridors of power on a string is so compelling a subject, the matter of who he slept with pales in comparison.

Eastwood and Black spend most of the first part of the movie exploring this towering figure, and the bulk of the latter half doting on the gay question. The timeline jumps around liberally, with a lot of too-clever jump cuts showing young Hoover and Tolson stepping into an elevator, and their older selves exiting, etc.

"J. Edgar" is a fine-looking movie, and generally well-acted, too. Though some parts seem oversized, others are desperately short-shrifted. The most notable is Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), whom young Hoover admired for her organizational skills and proposed marriage to on their third date. She demurred, but agreed to become his personal secretary, a position she would hold for the next five decades.

Gandy is omnipresent but unimportant, someone who lurks in the background until the filmmakers feel a need for Hoover to have a moment of self-reflection. Then Gandy is trotted in with her Steno pad and concerned expression to facilitate some convenient emoting.

My problem with this movie is it wants to exploit the shadowy whisperings about Hoover's personal life to paint a skewed portrait of his public one. Rumors, guilt by association and fleeting, surreptitious observations are an unreliable way to truly know a man. It's notable that these are the same sort of under-handed tactics Hoover himself used to gain and leverage power to wield according to his own interpretation of morality.

2 stars out of four