Ford v Ferrari (2019) ★★★★
This is a film with a puzzling title, one which pits two car manufacturers against each other, yet Ferrari barely feature. It's more a case of Ferrari's presence and reputation as the world's pre-eminent automobile manufacturer leads Ford, particularly Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) and Ford's vice president, Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) to approach Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) to develop a car to win at Le Mans.
With help from the brilliant, but unpredictable, driver and engineer Ken Miles (Christian Bale), they develop the Ford GT40 Mk II which goes to France to compete with Ferrari's prototype 330 P3 at the 1966 24 hours of Le Mans.
James Mangold has made some great films, from Cop Land to Walk the Line and Logan, and this is clearly a film made by a great director. I can see why it was nominated for so many industry awards last year. It's a great story, it's superbly directed with gripping action sequences and brilliant sound design and school. The performances, particularly Christian Bale with a very convincing Sutton Coldfield accent, are uniformly strong, and there were numerous occasions when I wished I was watching it in a big cinema with a huge screen and 360° sound.
It's a film with driving sequences of which John Frankenheimer (Grand Prix, Ronin) would be proud and I will probably buy it for home viewing in the next 12 months, most likely in the 4K Ultra HD format for the best possible picture and sound quality.
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