Ford v. Ferrari is a pretty good
snapshot of all the contradictions of the sport of car racing. The fan base of
this sport are red blooded Americans from those parts of the country that are
all about less government and more bootstrap. They wear cowboy hats, eat steak,
and drive cars, that most singular way to travel. But is there a sport out there
that is less beholden to corporate interests? Look at those NASCAR cars. They
are covered head to toe with advertisements. No car racer owns his own car. It is the corporation's car. This is because it takes a hell of a lot of
money and engineering to build a car that can compete in these races. So much
so that it may be a question as to whether the individual driver is all that
important. Particularly in long races like the one at issue in this movie, the
24-hour race at Le Mans. No individual racer drives all the race. It is the car
that goes the distance. But how do you tell a story about the car to the NASCAR fan base who are highly individualistic. (Were Carol Shelby
and Ken Miles really ignorant of the rule that affects the end of this race? I
mean, really?)
Ford v. Ferrari is a basic and
competent sports story about simple and rebellious protagonists and affluent
and beholden antagonists. It works on this basic level and is anchored by a
cast of manly men: Matt Damon as coach/car builder Carol Shelby and Christian
Bale as the driver Ken Miles get the job done on the ground. In the Ford office
are Tracy Letts as Ford CEO Henry Ford II and two of his senior employees Jon
Bernthal as Lee Iacocca and Josh Lucas as Leo Beebe. Ferrari is not played by a
name actor and actually does not have much to do in this movie. The main
conflict is between Lee Iacocca who wants to give our heroes (Damon and Bale)
more discretion and Leo Beebe who is mainly interested in marketing. Why can’t
our driver be more photogenic, asks Leo, we could totally sell more cars that
way? This question becomes the linchpin of the movie. Will the corporation give
the renegades enough leeway to succeed? Leo Beebe is portrayed as a scheming pretty
boy. Josh Lucas does his smarmy best (I remember him from American Psycho).
Is Ford really an underdog here? It
has all the money and talent and a willingness akin to the NFL’s Patriots to undertake
courses of action that aren’t technically cheating, but probably should be. Reading
between the lines, I got the feeling that Ferrari did not have much of a
chance. All Ford needed to do was show up and care. The main impetus for the
whole rivalry was the hurt feelings of Henry Ford II after Ferrari used the
Ford Company’s interest in acquiring his company to run up the price on the
other buyer, Fiat. Lee Iacocca reports this failure back to Henry Ford II and
adds that Ferrari called Ford cars ugly and Henry II fat. Henry Ford II gruffly declares
that the Le Mans racing team has a blank check. The rest is history. Ford
won the next five years. I expect Ford stopped winning because it stopped
caring. It made its point and went back to more profitable ventures, like selling
cars to regular people. Meanwhile, we are told that Ferrari went bankrupt
chasing perfection at Le Mans. There is a female character in this movie, the
wife of Ken Miles. She feels out of place in this exorbitant high-stakes pissing
contest.
This is one of those movies where I sort of wish there was a less
Hollywood version. I would like to know more about the engineering and science
of making a car go really fast for a very long time and less about the mystical
and intangible qualities of race car drivers. Having said that, Christian Bale
once again showcases his superhuman ability to gain/lose weight. Last time I
saw him, he had the gut of Dick Cheney. Now, he is thin and wiry again. That talented
jerk.
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