Stars: Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas, Noah Jupe
Director: James Mangold
Oscar History: 4 nominations/2 wins (Best Picture, Sound Editing*, Sound Mixing, Film Editing*)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars
(Spoilers Ahead) Taking place in the early 1960's, the film is about the Ford Motor Company, headed by Henry Ford II (Letts), trying to re-invent itself in the wake of declining sales and international competition. One of his associates, Lee Iacocca (Bernthal, and weirdly the film never acknowledges that Iacocca would become a much more iconic CEO than Ford Jr. ever would when he moved over to Chrysler), proposes that they attempt to get into racing and take on Ferrari. Ford reluctantly agrees, and they recruit former Le Mans winner Carroll Shelby (Damon) to help design the car. Shelby in turn recruits his friend, the ill-tempered but talented Ken Miles (Bale) to join the racing team. Another Ford executive, Leo Beebe (Lucas), wants to take Miles off of the project, and frequently sabotages Carroll's attempts to win his way. Despite the interference, Carroll goes to Le Mans with Ken as the diver, but Leo take away Ken's win by forcing him to "tie" with the other Ford drivers, and in the process pushes Ken to second place due to a technicality. The film ends with Ken's death in a car accident just a little bit after the race, and Carroll coming to terms with Ken's passing.
There are good parts to Ford vs. Ferrari before I get to the unforgivable. This is exactly the sort of movie that Matt Damon excels in-he's not a great heavy dramatic actor, and I find his comedic bits to be too reliant on mugging, but he's perfect for light dramas, and despite a heavy-handed third act, that's what this is-a fluffy, no-analysis-required drama. Bale, whom I don't like to the same degree as Damon, hasn't been this watchable in years. While he's obviously talented, it's delicious to see him sink his teeth into an over-the-top character and not just go for the intense; Ken is funny, hot-headed but charming, the kind of guy you'd love getting a beer with until he picked a fight with the bartender. And the racing scenes, which I was worried would be a slog (I find watching car-racing to be perhaps the dullest sport on ESPN), is entertaining and the movie does a decent job of not going to the same style of high stakes for different intervals with Ken in the car.
The problem with the movie is that its script is BAD. The lines that some of these men are forced to say are all pulled out of textbook cases of awful sports movie dialogue, and the way that its paced makes you realize everything coming at the beginning of the problem, with no actual stakes in the problem on the screen. It doesn't help that they give Josh Lucas the worst role I've seen in a movie this year, playing a villain who is always wrong while Carroll & Ken are always right-it's basically Bugs Bunny & Elmer Fudd by the end of the picture it's so black-and-white between the two. Tracy Letts is a fine actor, but you get the sense the film's creators want his Ford to be both a smart man (savvy enough to take valid criticism without lashing out), while also being a pompous idiot who falls for everyone of Josh Lucas's Leo's bad ideas. It is such lazy plotting & writing that it honestly ruined the movie for me, and that's not even before we throw in the downer third act curveball of Miles dying in the final 15 minutes. I know it's based on real life & if I loved racing I'd have seen this coming, but this is still a movie-what is the lesson here? This is a movie that has a lot of great elements, but it's all thrown apart by a script that, like Leo, wants to step on anything inventive that it's hoping to achieve. As a result, I'm going with a 1-star here because I adamantly disliked this movie, and every time they gave me something I might enjoy, the script comes in and takes it away.
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