Movie Review: Ford v Ferrari

I had the pleasure of attending the Dallas premier for the soon-to-be-released Ford v Ferrari movie. The film tells the personal story of former racer and Le Mans winner turned iconic car designer and builder Carroll Shelby and his good friend Ken Miles, a British racer, car designer, and American Hall of Fame inductee. The two men take on a quest to beat Enzo Ferrari and his stable of dominant cars in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

The movie has real star power with Matt Damon playing the automotive visionary Shelby and Christian Bale playing the highly-talented and outspoken racer Ken Miles. The onscreen rapport between Damon and Bale brings a strong believability that is refreshing for a movie about auto racing. The storyline captures their great friendship and as they battled with their own personal struggles while redesigning and rebuilding the fastest and most durable race car of that time. In today's racing climate, it's almost unheard of for a race car to have a mechanical failure; but during their time period, it was more commonplace for cars at endurance races not to finish.

The movie also reveals how the two good friends thought they had been given cart blanche from the Ford Motor Company to rebuild the now-famous high-powered GT40. Instead, they realize that if they ever expected to taste victory, they had to sometimes indulge and/or overcome certain executive leadership personnel and layers of corporate bureaucracy. I'm not sure how much creative license the writers took in developing this particular story line, but I can say this movie is not at all like the humor-leaning Days of Thunder or Talladega Nights. It has thought-out character development and an in-depth story line that goes deeper than just a movie about a car and a race.

The reason given for the executive leadership's micromanagement of all decisions related to the car, the drivers, or the race strategy, is that the executives had pretty much pinned their hopes on the idea that a Le Mans victory could rebuild the public perception of what the new Ford Motor Company was going to look like and thus bring in a new demographic of buyers. That thought process required Shelby, Miles, and their team of builders to go to war and not only build a car that would win the race, but build one that would dominate and crush team Ferrari.

Even if you know very little of the actual story of Carroll Shelby, Ken Miles, or their Le Mans racing history, you may still appreciate the story. The writers did a nice job of developing the plot so that you don't need to have historical context or be a race fan to enjoy the movie. The run time of the movie is just short of two and a half hours; but it was well paced, so it didn't feel that long. As someone who knew the history and is a race fan, I enjoyed the movie enough that I'll try to catch it again before it moves on.

Ford v Ferrari opens in theaters nationwide on November 15, 2019. See additional information below or visit:
Ford v Ferrari