Ford V Ferrari

Christian Bale puts in another Oscar worthy performance in a year of the snub. While there are far more compelling snubs such as Eddie Murphy, Awkwafina and even Adam Sandler, Christian Bale is Certainly more deserving of an academy award this year than Leonardo Decaprio, Brad Pit, Al Pacino and the list goes on. Had he been passed over for the likes of Eddie Murphy in Dolomite is My Name, I would say that there was a tough group of contenders. But with who was nominated, it is very obvious that the Academy picked a few movies that they wanted to focus on and to heck with the rest. Matt Damon even gives phenomenal performance that in another year would net him at minimum a nomination. The small consolation for Bale, unlike for Murphy or Awkwafina, is that Ford V Ferrari was able to snag a nomination for Best Picture and the category they deserve to win, Sound Editing.

Ford V Ferrari manages to get the audience to care about a battle between 2 millionaires while keeping our main characters out of the scummy world of the supper rich. We follow Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) as he is tasked with building a race car for Ford that will beat Ferrari at the famed Le Mans. Shelby Recruits a down on his luck, old racer in Ken Miles (Christian Bale) and has to fight the bureaucracy of the upper workings of Ford. Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) plays the foil to Shelby and Miles as he constantly is trying to undermine their success and take it for his own. Miles is the character that the audience can most identify with by being the everyday man who is constantly held down by the man and is only trying to do what he loves, being the best racer in the world. Miles must decide on the journey if he is going to remain the lone wolf, doing it as he sees fit or join the team of the company that is trying to stab him in the back. 

One interesting aspect of the film is that we are first introduced to Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) were are made to believe that he is a typical uncaring CEO of a big company. Then there are a number of scenes that seem to humanize him, only for a scene five minutes later that undoes all of the humanization before it. It almost seams that the film only could move the story along by making him seem human and they then had to immediately remove those feelings from the audience. If only with a little better writing they could have kept him aloof and kept the story flowing.

Due to the performances of Bale and Damon, Ford V. Ferrari easily earns a A rating, even with the clunky empathy for Ford.