As I've said before, I do enjoy myself some high-octane rubber-burning automobile action on occasion. So I have to admit, when I did catch the trailers for Ford vs Ferrari (or Le Mans '66, depending where you are in the world[/url], the promise of tossing Christian Bale and Matt Damon into the confines of classic mid-20th century car clashes did grab me. But ultimately, does the film live up to that premise, or are you better off listening to Jeremy Clarkson ramble about the sandwich he had for breakfast while getting a Toyota stuck in mud?
The premise is simple--Matt Damon is Carroll Shelby, real-life car racer and designer, teamed up with flippant veteran driver Ken Miles (Bale), by the Ford Motor Company itself, which has been slighted somewhat by the race-dominating Ferrari firm. Despite Miles being as friendly as a black bear with a perpetually broken toe, it's down to them to design a revolutionary new vehicle in ninety days and use it to show up Enzo Ferrari himself at the Le Mans track. Crashes ensue, sixties rock kicks in, and tensions get heated.
You can probably guess the sequence of events that link it all together--especially if you're familiar with the true story it's more or less based on. So it comes down to the performances, and the races themselves. Fortunately, Damon and Bale are both fun to watch--Damon's performance is a fairly typical good ol' boy type, but Bale definitely steals the show. His Miles is the best kind of smartass--short-tempered, always snapping back, but competent and balls to the wall enough that you definitely want to see him come out. And, compared to putting on an indecipherable growl as Batman, Bale here gives what might be to some a sometimes indecipherable northern English accent, amusingly.
The racing? Yeah, pretty cool. There are some really gorgeous shots where the cars have their rims glowing with the sheer heat their machinery is being put through, shining through the rain and dust. The sound design is great--perhaps it was the theater I saw it in, but when the engines roar, you do feel it in the seat. I suggest a cinema watch if that at all sounds appealing to you. And fortunately, you get enough scenes set in the driver's set to keep things fun--it's not all just crammed in towards the end.
It's not perfect though--Miles and Shelby might be working for the Ford company, but what their exact connection to it all, besides just building a really awesome car, feels a little fuzzy. There's the cliche corporate jerk getting in their way, but Henry Ford the Second isn't really depicted as that much better, and not by accident I felt. I did feel like cheering Miles, but the Ford team as a whole? Eh, I wasn't so sure.
Ultimately though, if sleek sexy sixties cars tearing through a track sounds like fun, give it a watch. It even makes a NASCAR race feel exciting, miraculously. I don't think it's as amazing as some are making it out to be, but it's certainly no deflated tire.
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