A short review of a film from the British Film Institute’s London Film Festival 2019 – Le Mans ’66 (or, as the Americans insist on marketing it, Ford v Ferrari).
Le Mans ’66
Screening Date – Thursday, 10th October 2019
I wasn’t sure about booking this one, since I’m not a motor racing fan, but there was something about the story of Ken Miles which intrigued me enough to give it a go. I’m really glad that I did because it turns out that, primarily, this is an old-fashioned character study. Plus, you really don’t have to be a car fanatic to care about people who regularly put their lives and reputations on the line, in pursuit of an impossible dream.
Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) is already a legend when the film begins, as one of the few Americans to have won the gruelling 24-hour race, Le Mans. After some bad blood is spilled between two famous car magnates, Shelby is hired by Ford to rejuvenate their brand and to build a race car capable of taking on the world champions, Ferrari.
Shelby knows how to schmooze and he slips easily into personifying the all-American Ford brand but his friend and favoured driver, Ken Miles (Christian Bale), displays a knack for irritating the Ford board members. Quick-tempered and (heaven forbid!) English, Miles is a brilliant, intuitive racer but he doesn’t suffer fools gladly and seemingly cannot help but speak his mind, something which terrifies the image-conscious Ford company. In fact, we end up rooting so strongly for the underdog, Miles, that his Ford overlords often threaten to eclipse Ferrari as the villains of the piece.
The cinematography is superb, throwing us into the race action with such skill that you’ll find your feet instinctively pressing imaginary pedals, or shell-shocked like Ford, when Shelby takes him for a little drive. However, whilst Mangold directs some of the most extraordinary, nail-biting race scenes I’ve ever seen on film, it is his exploration of an unusual friendship that is at the heart of the film. Fighting the interference of the Ford ‘suits’ and the entire world’s low expectations, how these two men managed to build a revolutionary vehicle that gave Ford a fighting chance at Le Mans is a thrilling story.
An instant classic, Le Mans ’66 will move you – it hits cinemas in the UK on Nov 15th.
Dir James Mangold
Prod Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, James Mangold
Scr Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, Jason Keller, James Mangold
With Matt Damon, Christian Bale, Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, Tracy Letts
USA-France
2019
152min
UK Distribution Twentieth Century Fox
With partial English subtitles (some scenes are not in the English language)