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Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Ford vs. Ferrari (2019)

This is at core a racing movie, one set so as to let the audience feel the thrill and the risk that the drivers put themselves every time they get behind the wheel and aim to hit 200-miles per hour.  Even if instinctively you get that would be dangerous, somehow this movie makes it real.
The movie is based on a weirdly true story set in the 1960s, and centers on two charismatic purists, the legendary ex-racer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and the rowdy, insolent Brit Ken Miles (Christian Bale), who’s a prodigy both behind the wheel and under the hood. It takes nearly half an hour to get the plot in fifth gear. After being rebuffed and insulted following a failed attempt to purchase the Italian company Ferrari to add hipster cred to his family-car image, Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) vows to build his own race cars and crush the smug Enzo Ferrari in the 24-hour endurance race at Le Mans. Ford exec Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) reaches out to Shelby, who reaches out to Miles, whose penchant for insulting his wealthy but insufficiently auto-sensitive sports car customers has brought him to the brink of bankruptcy. With a blank check, the pair get busy hammering frames and shedding scores of pounds of engine parts.  Their relationship, and reliance on each other's expertise is a testament to teamship that is rarely seen.  Good movie, if a bit too long.

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