Quick synopsis: With the company in dire straits (not the band), Ferrari need to win their next race in order to survive. Will they? I mean, they still exist, so yeah.
Many people like this film, it’s got pretty decent reviews. I have to be honest; I don’t get it. The main issue I had with it was I had nothing to hang a positive thought on. It didn’t feel informative enough to be interesting, the characters (particularly the lead; Enzo Ferrari) were too unlikeable to root for, and you knew how the main conflict would end. Let’s go through all three.
The lack of information. You don’t come out of this with a better understanding of the person, or the company. It’s so heavily focused on one event that it neglects to give you any other information. It feels like the second part of a ten-part documentary series. I’m not asking for every single piece of the company history to be covered, but it would be nice to have at least one “oh, I didn’t know that!/that’s interesting” thought whilst watching it.
The predictability. This also affected the shoe-opic Air. We all know that Ferrari exists (spoilers?). So you can’t really watch this and think “OMG! I wonder if the company is going to survive this.” If you push that a company is dependent on doing well in a race, and the company is still around today, you know what’s going to happen.
Now onto the unlikeability. I thought the lead character was a complete prick. I didn’t care about anybody, especially the lead. “oh no, if this doesn’t work he might have to sell the house he purchased for his mistress and illegitimate child. Or stop drinking quite as much expensive wine.”
He’s not in a “I’m financially struggling and if I don’t turn it around I won’t have enough money to pay rent” situation. The film seems to really hate his wife, with his mother blaming her for his cheating “Well if you can’t give him an heir, it’s his right to look elsewhere”. The film ends with the wife saying “I’ll lend you money but only if you never acknowledge your illegitimate son as your heir”, then a few minutes later you get a piece of text onscreen saying “She died in [year], and now the son is the head of the company”. It seems to treat “but then his wife died so the son he had with his mistress was finally able to inherit the business” as a happy ending. Like his wife was being the bitch for not allowing that.
I like Shailene Woodley, she gave a fantastic performance in TFIOS, anchored the Divergent series, and rightfully puts herself forward for causes she believes in. I think she is a good person and a good performer, but she is a terrible Italian. A lot of the accents are bad, but hers is one step away from “It’s a me, a Mario! I make-a the pizza”. Out of the cast, only Penelope Cruz gives the impression of someone who can actually point out Italy on a map of Europe.
To the film’s credit, the racing scenes themselves are fantastic, injected with a sense of realism missing from similar films. They don’t feel like you’re watching a film about racing, it feels like you’re actually there experiencing it, being fully aware of just how f*cking fast these things can go.
Mann has also managed to recreate the period. I’m not aware of how accurate it is, but it feels right. It doesn’t even need to tell you when and where it’s set, as the set design does a good enough job of telling you. The aftermath of a crash at the end is much more brutal than I thought it would be, although that is somewhat ruined by the reaction of Enzo being one of nonchalance. That’s to be expected though, another character died in one of his cars early on, and there’s no mention of him for the rest of the film. There’s no sense of “but am I responsible?” guilt, it’s just “his mother caused him to crash” (that’s genuinely what he says by the way) and absolves himself. Again, he’s an asshole.
I wish I liked this film, I really do. But it’s the second Adam Driver film of the year with an exciting concept, rendered incredibly dull. Maybe if you like cars etc, this might mean more to you. But it left me colder than the weather is currently.
combined with his veneer of a can-do attitude, echoes many promises the recession generation were educated on, but didn’t have delivered. Showing how ruthless someone really has to be to achieve the ever elusive American dream.
manipulative, and downright evil at times. “If it bleeds, it leads” as is repeated multiple times in the film, with Rene Russo giving a chemical turn as the News show runner, clearly taking inspiration from 1996’s Network, with the satirisation of the ultra-violet media being the focus of that film, but as I haven’t seen it, can’t comment further.
Gyllenhaal, giving still a career best performance in an already well versed one, dropping 20 pounds and digging deep to portray a mere reflection of a real man. The other being Dan Gilroy’s dark, clever and witty script; both married perfectly to fully realize and bring this character and story to life, and give us a sociopath for the digital age. (Move over Sherlock)
Behind the camera Dan Gilroy does a clean job of making the L.A. nightscape a very cold and isolating place, reflecting its lead character, and sharing many shades with Michael Mann’s Collateral, which was clearly an influence. It’s a high-class and pristine looking film, especially for a directorial debut, having a gorgeous neo-noir style; and his motifs of focusing on camera screens to establish how the camera sees things – instead of exactly how they actually are – works as a great and sometimes surreal effect.
anything wrong with the direction, just compared to its other elements. It doesn’t seem like it pushes the envelope as much, and has left me wondering how the film would have turned out in the hands of a David Fincher or a 
Troubled Productions 