You
can also check out my “Four Corners” column on
new-and-newish Valley eateries.
Ford
v Ferrari—Despite its promising stars and director, I admit that I dragged my
feet a little when it came to seeing this one. This wasn’t because of the
film’s formidable two-and-a-half hour running time. Nor was it because of my
lifelong lack of interest in auto racing, and in movies about auto racing.
No,
my reluctance where Ford v Ferrari
was concerned was more parochial than that. In the rural America where I
grew up, a partisan alignment with one automotive company over the others—and
in opposition to them—was regarded, at times, almost more like a political
affiliation or even a religious denomination than like mere brand loyalty. And
I grew up in a Chevy household. My father, far less fanatical than many of his
neighbors on such matters, was known in his later years to wear a cap reading
“I’D RATHER PUSH A CHEVY THAN DRIVE A FORD.”
Even
though I was largely indifferent to cars and car culture, my eventual
understanding of Henry Ford—his notorious antisemitism, Hitler’s shout-out to
him in Mein Kampf—and of his
company—the Pinto scandal of the ‘70s and other safety and environmental
shortcuts in the years since—gave me no reason to question my Dad’s wisdom in
this matter. And the title Ford v
Ferrari suggested that I would be asked to root for Ford.
The
movie dramatizes the efforts, in the mid-‘60s, by sports car designer Carroll
Shelby (Matt Damon) and race driver and mechanic Ken Miles (Christian Bale) to
develop the Ford GT40, in hopes of defeating Ferrari in the 24 Hours of Le
Mans. This was a marketing strategy by the young Lee Iacocca (John Bernthal) to
jazz up the flagging Ford’s staid middle American image with younger customers.
But it became, at least according to the film, a vengeful mission after Enzo
Ferrari (Remo Girone) insulted Ford during an abortive attempt to acquire the
Italian company.
I
needn’t have worried. The film makes Ford look bad. Henry Ford II is amusingly
played by Tracy Letts as a thin-skinned, blustering, blubbering buffoon,
perennially in his father’s shadow. And one of his executives, Leo Beebe (Josh
Lucas), is presented here as a toadying, conniving weasel. The company is
depicted as at least as much the antagonists to Shelby and Miles as their
Ferrari rivals are. As to the degree to which any of this is accurate or fair,
your guess is as good as mine and quite possibly better, but since it didn’t
ask me to cheer on Ford, my lifelong conditioning was satisfied.
Beyond
that, Ford v Ferrari is a
well-acted, well-executed racing drama. This is a genre for which I’ve never
been able to work up much enthusiasm. Having admitted that, I can also say that
the long-underrated director James Mangold got fine performances from—along with
the caricatured Ford execs—Damon, as the unflappably diplomatic Texan Shelby,
Bale as the barking, explosive Brit Miles, Caitriona Balfe as the patient Mrs.
Miles and Noah Jupe as his adoring little son.
Did the picture really need to
be quite so long? I’d say maybe not, but there are probably motor-heads in the
audience who wouldn’t want a single gearshift or tire-squeal omitted, and even
non-car buffs can enjoy the rich ‘60s period detail and atmosphere. And when we
finally get to the Mad-Max-like mayhem of Le
Mans, there’s no denying that Mangold’s direction
makes it an exciting ride.
RIP to influential Star
Trek writer D.C. Fontana, passed on at 80.
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