Mark Reviews Movies: FORD V FERRARI

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 14, 2019

The Ford Motor Company had been mass-producing cars almost since its inception, and when we first see the company's main factory in Michigan in Ford v Ferrari, the assembly line is hard at work, churning out cars amidst the roar of machinery and the dull grayness of, well, a car factory. On the other hand, Ferrari, still under the control of its namesake founder at the start of the film, has its headquarters at a massive estate in Italy. The men working on those cars are fashioning the vehicles piece by piece, with one man refining each part, as a only a handful of completed cars sit in the background.

It's strange to think of a pair of companies as two of the main characters of a story, but once corporations were legally defined as "people," that had to happen eventually. Director James Mangold's film, though, is smart is keep Ford and Ferrari less as actual figures and more as representatives of two very different ideas.

Ford has its brand, and Ferrari has its own. One is dependable and pocketbook-friendly and a necessity in modern living, and the other is a luxury, a sign of wealth and power, and a car that's more at home on a racetrack than on the streets. A Ford will get you where you need to go. A Ferrari is to drive around in order to show off that, in the big picture, you already have gotten there.

The real main characters here are, thankfully, people—real people, by the way. They mainly serve to represent things, too. The two main ones, retired racecar driver Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and active but struggling racer Ken Miles (Christian Bale), represent a sort of maverick spirit that doesn't care about bottom lines, public image, marketing strategies, or publicity stunts.

In 1959, Carroll became the first American to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a brutal endurance test of a race set on dangerous track in France, where the road is rough, the straights are long, and the turns are hairpin. A heart condition forced him to retire, and since then, he started his own namesake company, building cars and coaching a team of racers, including the hotheaded but uniquely talented Ken.

Ken has been racing for years, but his work is at an auto garage he owns. Near the start—after winning a race and, with a throw of a wrench toward Carroll, showing why the teams that could give him a career as a driver won't touch him—he loses the garage to the IRS, leaving him, his wife Mollie (Caitriona Balfe), and their son Peter (Noah Jupe) without a vital source of income.

Opportunity knocks, though, when Ford's marketing guru Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) comes up with a new marketing pitch. It's the late 1960s. The Baby Boomers have grown up, have expendable income, and have much different tastes than their parents and grandparents, who grew up knowing Ford as that ordinary car. The company can make fast, sexy cars to appeal to the newest generation of car-buying adults.

Henry Ford II (a scene-commanding-and-stealing Tracy Letts) is skeptical, and so, too, is sniveling executive Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas). Lee's trip to Italy, to make an offer to Enzo Ferrari (Remo Girone), changes that. Enzo calls Henry fat, pig-headed, and, the thing that makes the Ford president's face finally drop, "the second."

Lee gives Carroll the chance to build a fast car that can beat Team Ferrari at Le Mans. Carroll offers Ken the chance to test drive the new vehicle and race for Ford.

The film, written by brothers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller, establishes itself as an inspirational story of second and third chances, of rebels fighting for what they know is the right move against an uncaring system, and of a friendship that endures, despite the confrontations of ego and the petty squabbles that can turn into impromptu wrestling matches. That last part is film's heart, which it wears covertly under its sleeve until the epilogue, when at least one of the men has a chance to show how much the other has meant to him.

The soul of the film, though, is how these two men have to navigate the soulless machine of corporate speak, strategy, and sentiment. Carroll, who knows a thing or two about cutthroat business (An early scene reveals he has sold the same car to three different people, and a later one has him turning Henry's determination to fire him into a rallying session), is a bit more open to the Ford Company's demands. Ken, who clearly has a problem with authority, can either go along or sit out during the most promising opportunity of his life. Basically, what begins as a battle between two companies evolves into a friendly skirmish between two men—one with the idea that it's fine to sacrifice some individuality for the company line, while the other refuses to give that concept a second thought.

Between the lines of that story, Mangold provides us with a handful of exciting and dynamically composed racing sequences, with each one taking on a different stylistic approach (Carroll's opening Le Mans race is all about close-ups and subjective shots on a frighteningly dark and foggy track, and Ken's first race is made up of medium shots from the hood and over his shoulder, giving us a sense of his composure). The final race at Le Mans has the filmmaker pulling out all the stops for an extended sequence that communicates the endurance, pressure, and strategy of the competition.

Yes, Ford v Ferrari is about the companies. It's also about the cars and the races. Those things are to be expected, but the film really succeeds in presenting a pair of friends, fighting over differing ideas but, ultimately, willing to fight harder for each other.

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