My Review of "Ford Vs. Ferrari"

I have been looking forward to watching Ford Vs. Ferrari for a long time. There have been countless reviews that said it was really good. The problem was that there wasn't any time for me to watch the movie and nobody wanted to watch it with me. Now I have plenty of time and the movie is now out for rent so I finally got a chance to see it.

This movie is more than a movie about brotherhood, bonds and passion for things. The driving force for much of this movie was ego. You'll see why when I describe the movie to you.

It starts off with Carroll Shelby, played by Matt Damon. He's just won the 24 Hours at Le Mans. He's the only American to do it at the time but suffers some complications afterwards with his heart. With his heart condition he's no longer able to race. You can see that his passion for racing is huge. He was on fire and still wanted to continue racing at Le Mans.

Then we cut to Henry Ford II, played by Tracy Letts. He walks into his Ford factory and shuts it down because GM is starting to take a big chunk of their profits. He basically wants new ideas to rejuvenate Ford. So one of his executives Lee Iacocca, played by Jon Bernthal tells Ford that they should get into race cars to get connected with the youth.

Lee basically finds out that Ferrari is at the brink of bankruptcy and might be willing to be partners. Lee goes over to Italy to make a deal with Enzo Ferrari, played by Remo Girone. Little did Lee know, Ferrari was planning this meeting so that he could raise the price of his company for another Italian car company called Fiat to buy them out.

In the process of the screw job, Enzo also throws tons of insults at Henry Ford II. I mentioned before that people's egos were at play and Ford's ego was hurt hard. He tells Lee that he wants to pursue the car racing idea and money was no object.

Lee meets with Carroll and makes a deal. In order for Carroll to get this race team to be successful he needs the best driver and that's Ken Miles, played by Christian Bale. The problem with Ken is that he's loud mouthed and has no filter. He isn't a good image for Ford and Carroll knows this.

Throughout this movie there will be butting of heads because everyone wants to be in charge and if they're not in charge their egos get to their heads.

Initially, I thought this movie was going to be more about the racing than a study of the relationship between Ken and Carroll. They both have a huge passion for racing and they need each other to survive. Then there's also the relationship between the race crew and the Ford executives.

They talk about how Ford only wants to sell cars. He doesn't actually care for the cars that he sells. In the end, this was technically true but Carroll gives Ford a taste of what the race crew was delivering.

It's an interesting discussion about what we're passionate about and what makes money. Is there a fine line between the two? This talks about the balance of passion and your life well being. Even in the beginning of the movie Ken had to close up shop because his garage wasn't making any money. His wife Mollie, played by Caitriona Balfe, tells him that it would kill him if he didn't race anymore.

The relationships were well done but there were some weird scenes in this movie as well. Why would Mollie want Ken to continue racing and then all of a sudden freak out when he starts thinking about racing. I know it's more about him keeping secrets from her but it was a weird scene.

There's also the fact that Carroll stopped racing because of his heart condition and yet we still see him driving at breakneck speeds throughout the movie. That doesn't make sense at all.

The movie is riddled with some of these inconsistencies that kind of pulled me away from the movie. I have to remind myself it's just a movie, stop thinking about it but inconsistencies like this just throw me off.

Overall, it was an enjoyable movie but it was nowhere as great as all the reviewers online says it is. There are some good race scenes and the relationships are fleshed out really well but there are a few messy scenes that really took me out of the movie. I have to give this movie a 7 out of 10. It's fun and enjoyable but I don't know if I could recommend this movie to too many people.