Right out of the headlines on November the 14th, 2019.  Ferrari unveils their 5th latest car for their 2019.  So the question is who is thermal winner in the phrase FORD V FERRARI?   On Ford’s side, they are investing a lot of money into the smart car.

One of the big films opening this week is FORD V FERRARI, from 20th Century Fox now owned by Disney, that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.

FORD V FERRARI features two of the finest looking actors working in movies at present – Christian Bale and Matt Damon  Bale discards his good looks, looking sufficiently grimy to portray an expert auto-mechanic/race car driver eventually working for Ford.

FORD V FERRARI represents the kind of movie 20th Century Fox finances that Disney does not know what to do with.  This is what was reported.  To Fox’s credit, it takes guts to finance a film like this one, when car race movies are seldom financed.  This could be the reason this big production is released at this odd time in November.  But it is not a bad film and definitely worth a look for its excitement and drama.

Director James Mangold (3:10 TO YUMA) and the 4 film writers tell the story of real-life superheroes Carroll Shelby (Damon) and Ken Miles (Bale), race car engineers who commandeered the resources of the mighty Ford Motor Company in the 1960s to go head-to-head with the gods of Italian auto racing, Ferrari.  

This is one car racing movie that shows the mechanics and marketing and business that goes behind the scenes of a race.   The mechanics at the race’s pits tops are just as important as the race car drivers.  Everyone has an input to who or which car wins the race from the families of the race car drivers, to the company to almost everyone connected to the race.

But it is the Ford motor company’s owner Henry Ford and marketing chief that the two have to keep fighting in order to beat Ferrari.  So the title of the film should be Underdogs V Ford.   At worst the film descends a bit into cliche territory, especially in two manipulative segments (the fight and the ride Ford takes in the race car) that got the audience at the TIFF screening I attended applauding.  D.P. Phedon Papamichael shoots the race sequences, particularly the night ones spectacularly as if putting one in the driver’s seat. 

Christian Bale excels in his role as maverick Ken Miles.  Nothing in the film is mentioned of the reason his speaking wth a British accent.  Reading up on Miles, he is described in Wikipedia as a British born American race car driver.

FORD V FERRARI is the type of crowd pleasing action packed movie that critics generally dislike and audiences cheer to.  That said, it is definitely worth a look!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3h9Z89U9ZA