James Mangold’s very manly and patriotic sportscar racing movie Ford v Ferrari is about as slick as big Hollywood blockbusters come. The director with credits as varied as 2001’s Kate & Leopold, the 2007 remake of the classic western 3:10 to Yuma, and not one, but two comic book franchise films about the X-Men’s Wolverine character has turned his craftsperson’s talents to the sports biopic. Ford v Ferrari feels like a movie we might have gotten 20, maybe even 30 years ago. And I mean that in a good, throwback sort of way.
The script – originally penned by Jason Keller and rewritten by screenwriting brothers Jez and John-Henry Butterworth – features, if memory serves, exactly one female speaking part. At one point, that character is reduced to sitting in a lawn chair as she watches our two manly-men heroes resolve their differences with an old-fashioned American fist fight. The rah-rah patriotism of the picture – which only ever flirts with outright jingoism – brings to mind something like Top Gun, but with race cars instead of fighter jets.
All that aside, Ford v Ferrari is also a damn good time at the movies. It’s a crowd-pleaser that offers unadulterated movie spectacle.