Ford v Ferrari is not just for gearheads

James Mangold's Ford v Ferrri is one of those better-than-expected movies, not just for gearheads, though gearheads will probably get much more out of it than I could. The basic story line, based on the real-life achievements of the 2 leads, follows Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and Ken Miles (Christian Bale) as they develop a race car for Ford Motor Co. to take on the Ferrari juggernaut as Le Mans in 1966. The movie is not subtle in the least: the "heavies" (the Ferrari snobs, the Ford Motor Co. management flunkies) are hateful and the heroes (Damon, Bale, the pit crew) are heroic. The attempts to make this story more "human" and to appeal to a wider audience - many cutouts to Bale's wife and young son - are pointless and unneeded. The story line is good enough and the race sequences are great; for anyone, like me I guess, who's wondered what's so athletic about race-car driving, you just floor it and steer around an oval track, FvF lets you know and feel what it must be like to drive in these competitions. There are a few powerful off-track scenes as well: Bale's wife driving aggressively in her station wagon, Henry Ford II bursting into tears after a quick test dive w/ Damon, Enzo Ferrari telling Ford to FOff while rejecting their buyout offer. Other scenes in my view were not so great, notably the Damon's maniacal driving on LA streets - lucky he didn't kill innocent passengers of pedestrians and a bad and immature image for this mostly good film to promote. All told, though, the film is informative about the car-race culture and about the auto industry and you can't help but root for the good guys.