Movie Review: Ford v Ferrari

Ford v Ferrari **** / *****

Directed by: James Mangold.

Written by: Jez Butterworth & John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller.

Starring: Christian Bale (Ken Miles), Matt Damon (Carroll Shelby), Caitriona Balfe (Mollie Miles), Jon Bernthal (Lee Iacocca), JJ Feild (Roy Lunn), Josh Lucas (Leo Beebe), Ray McKinnon (Phil Remington), Noah Jupe (Peter Miles), Tracy Letts (Henry Ford II), Ian Harding (Jimmy), Wallace Langham (Dr. Granger), Rudolf Martin (Dieter Voss), Jonathan LaPaglia (Eddie), Marisa Petroro (Mrs. Henry Ford II), Jack McMullen (Charlie Agapiou), Adam Mayfield (Lloyd Ruby), Ward Horton (Burt), Brad Beyer (Wayne), Benjamin Rigby (Bruce McLaren), Christopher Darga (John Holman), Michael Gough (Le Mans Announcer), Remo Girone (Enzo Ferrari).

 

Ford v Ferrari is a period piece and a throwback in more ways than one. It wasn’t all that long ago – 15-20 years perhaps – when films like Ford v Ferrari were common place from Hollywood studios – mainstream, muscular filmmaking, aimed at an adult audience that wouldn’t challenge people per se, but would certainly entertain them with a film that simply fires on all cylinders. Now, of course, we rarely get films like this at all any more – and the ones we get are considered risky. I don’t necessarily think Ford v Ferrari is a great film – but it’s a very good one, and the type of film we should be seeing in theaters at least once a month, not once a year if we’re lucky.

 

The film streamlines its 1960s set true story to make everything more dramatic and tension filled – but it works. When the film opens, Carrol Shelby (Matt Damon) has had to give up car racing because of his heart, and now spends his time in car sales, race management and car design – and kind of barely making ends meet. One of his drivers, and friends, is Ken Miles (Christian Bale) – a British hothead, who may be a genius on the track, and loved by his wife (who for once doesn’t scold her husband for his dangerous job – but isn’t given much of a personality at all otherwise) and young son, but he’s also more than a little bit of an asshole. Shelby is approached by the head of Ford’s marketing department – Lee Iacocca (Jon Bernthal) – about designing a car that can go up against Ferrari at the 24-hour race at Le Mans. Iacocca’s first plan, to simply buy Ferrari, ends poorly – with Enzo Ferrari insulting everyone, including Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), whose ego is hurt enough to dump millions into the program. But Shelby and Miles are rebels who go their own way – and that rubs Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) the wrong way – he’s a Ford Exec and toady, who wants things done the “Ford way”.

 

The film was directed by James Mangold, who isn’t the most exciting filmmaker in the world, but he is the kind who knows how to make these kind of big, mainstream films without superheroes and still make them entertaining on a large scale (and hell, even with superheroes – as his Logan is one of the best in the genre). He pulls that trick off again here. The racing scenes in the film are genuinely exciting – Miles wife talks about liking to feel the vibrations of the cars, and through the excellent sound work on the film, you’ll feel those vibrations as well. The film makes racing look fun, while all the time letting you know just how dangerous it could be at the same time. The entire last act of the film is set at Le Mans – with the various personal dramas playing out, at the same time as Miles is running the race of his life. It is genuinely thrilling.

 

And Damon and Bale are well cast, well matched leads. Christian Bale is excellent at playing driven assholes – and that’s what he does here. He has his principles, and he won’t compromise on them, consequences be damned. He softens a little as the film moves along – but only so much. Damon probably has the slightly more complicated role – he’s principled as well, but perhaps a little more willing to tow the company line until they push him just a little too far. Your tolerance for this movie will depend on your tolerance for the type of “boys will be boys” tomfoolery that dominates much of the movie. It’s lightweight, non-toxic masculinity stuff – but they lay it on a little thick.

 

And then it all comes down to the ending, and Ford v Ferrari completely and totally nails it. It nails it when the Le Mans race ends, it nails it in the tragic scene right after, and it absolutely nails it in the final scene. Yes, it is designed to get the men in the audience to cry – but it will work. Overall Ford v Ferrari is the type of mainstream film I really wish we saw more of. No, it doesn’t challenge you all that much – but it delivers exactly what it promises to, with everyone at the top of their game. Hollywood needs more movies like this.

Movie Review: Logan

Logan **** ½ / *****

Directed by: James Mangold.

Written by: Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green.

Starring: Hugh Jackman (Logan), Patrick Stewart (Charles), Dafne Keen (Laura), Boyd Holbrook (Pierce), Stephen Merchant (Caliban), Elizabeth Rodriguez (Gabriela), Richard E. Grant (Dr. Rice), Eriq La Salle (Will Munson), Elise Neal (Kathryn Munson), Quincy Fouse (Nate Munson).

 

There is a uniformity to superhero movies that I find more than a little disappointing. I’ve heard people defend the genre as saying its nothing more than the modern day Western genre – except that ignores the fact that during the heyday of the Western (the 1930s-1970s) you had artists such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, Sergio Leone, Clint Eastwood, Sam Peckinpah, Anthony Mann, and many (many) others doing all sorts of very interesting, very different things with the genre – something that unfortunately hasn’t really happened with the superhero movies of the 2000-present era. The films, unless they’re directed Christopher Nolan, feel they come off an assembly line whose main purpose is to set up the next product to come off that same assembly line– and while that assembly line often ends up making a high quality, highly entertaining product, I wish there was a more personal touch to many of the films. That’s one of the main reasons why James Mangold’s Logan is the best the genre has produced – outside the Nolan Batman films – in recent years. The film feels like the personal vision of a filmmaker – and doesn’t have to worry about sequels, prequels etc. – the next chapter as it were. The movie exists by itself – and yet benefits from all the times we’ve seen Hugh Jackman play this character before (not to mention Patrick Stewart as Professor X). The film has weight – and real stakes. The action is more brutal (perhaps too brutal to be honest) and more personal. And like the best of the genre, it’s a hell of a lot of fun.

 

The year is 2029, and mutants are all but extinct. There are a few left – like Logan aka Wolverine, and that’s because his body heals himself, making him pretty much immortal. But even he is not doing very well lately – he’s older and slower – and his wounds take much longer to heel than they once did. In short, he’s dying. He’s still better off than Professor X – who Logan keeps locked up in a huge oil tank in Mexico – under the eye of Caliban (Stephen Merchant) and drugged up to boot. Professor X has some sort of progressive brain disease – Alzheimer’s, ALS, etc. – which is dangerous in the world’s most powerful brain. Logan has a plan to get them both out of harm’s way – to set sail on a boat, and die in peace. But before he can do that, he is approached by Gabriela (Elizabeth Rodriguez) – who says her daughter, Laura (Dafne Keen) needs his help to get to North Dakota. Long story short, it turns out Laura and Logan have a lot in common – and that Laura has a team of paramilitary troops lead by Piece (Boyd Holbrook) on her trail – determined to capture and/or kill her. True to form, Logan reluctantly agrees to help – spurring a road trip for him, Laura and Professor X.

 

Director James Mangold is the right choice of director here – he has a history with the character (having directed 2013’s The Wolverine – a not bad film itself) – but more importantly being a director who would probably be directing Westerns if he could today. His 3:10 to Yuma remake – with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe – is one of the better modern, big budget Westerns – and his breakthrough film CopLand (1997) starring Sylvester Stallone, is essentially a Western itself – just one set in modern day New York. Logan unmistakably references Westerns throughout – I’ve heard it called the Unforgiven of superhero movies, and that’s not a bad descriptor. Mangold also knows action sequences – and here he outdoes himself. The action in the film is brutal and bloody and uncompromising – coming fast and furious, but expertly staged – avoiding the trap of shaky camera work and rapid fire editing so many modern directors think passes for action direction these days. The action sequences in the movie hurt – you feel it when the characters are fighting, and take their lumps.

 

The film’s greatest strength though has to be the weight of the interpersonal relationships – and how they develop. Part of that work has been done by our long connection to both Logan and Professor X – stretching back to 2000’s X-Men – now. Seeing them older, and more beaten and broken than ever before brings unexpected weight to the film. The very real bond between the two of them – contentious at times, pained is relatable. Watching Logan take care of Professor X will resonate with anyone who has had to take care of a dying parent (or seen those who have done it) – an oddly, real world problem this superhero movie goes for – and pulls off. Both Jackman and Stewart – knowing this is their last time with these characters – go for broke, and deliver two of the best performances the genre has to offer. The relationship between Logan and Laura also deepens, and becomes surprisingly emotional by the end.

 

If there was one thing I wished the film had cut back on, it’s all the swearing. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind a lot of swearing (I love Tarantino and Mamet for example), but like last year’s Deadpool, I think this film mistakes a lot of swear words (and more blood in the violence) for more maturity – something Logan would have even without that. It just struck me as the film trying too hard for something it was already doing quite well.

 

But that’s mainly a tiny complaint, of a movie I really did love. I wish more studios would give directors the freedom to do something like Logan – a superhero movie not beholden to sequels, prequels, etc. – and just went ahead a told a great story on its own terms. It’s the way you get a film this great.

Movie Review: The Wolverine

The Wolverine
Directed by: James Mangold.
Written by: Mark Bomback and Scott Frank.
Starring: Hugh Jackman (Logan), Tao Okamoto (Mariko), Rila Fukushima (Yukio), Hiroyuki Sanada (Shingen), Svetlana Khodchenkova (Viper), Brian Tee (Noburo), Haruhiko Yamanouchi (Yashida), Will Yun Lee (Harada), Ken Yamamura (Young Yashida), Famke Janssen (Jean Grey).

One time I’ve wondered about superhero movies is why the all seem to follow the same three movie arc, before petering out and/or rebooting themselves. In the first movie, the hero discovers their powers, learns how to use them and then has to confront a villain at the end. The second movie, they have to face an even bigger enemy – one that makes them question their own abilities – but eventually they overcome them, but not without some sort of cost. The third movie, the hero doesn’t really want to be a hero anymore – but has to, one last time – before they give it up. Most of these heroes literally have decades of stories to draw from in the comics – so why do they always follow the same pattern. This is what makes James Mangold’s The Wolverine somewhat refreshing. While it is still a part of the overall X-Men saga – specifically referencing events in X-Men: The Last Stand (and in a post credits sequence setting up next year’s Days of Future Past), for the most part this is a standalone entity that has a self-contained story. There are bad guys, of course, but the fate of free world doesn’t hang in the balance – entire cities are not destroyed, and thousands of people are not killed, and billions of dollars in damage do not occur. By superhero movie standards, The Wolverine is almost small scale. The story itself is not exactly earth-shatteringly original – if you don’t see the plot twists of the third act coming, you probably haven’t seen a movie before – but in the superhero genre, this is about as close as we’re probably going to get to originality.

The movie opens in Nagasaki on the day the bomb is dropped. Logan (Hugh Jackman) is a POW, and he protects a kindly Japanese soldier from the blast (no, I don’t really believe what he does is possible – but at least he’s not in a refrigerator, right Indiana Jones?). The movie than picks up decades later – with Logan wandering around somewhat in Northern Canada, haunted my his past – in particular visions of the now dead Jean Grey (Famke Janssen). This is when he is approached by Yukio (Rila Fukushima). She says the Japanese soldier he saved all those years ago is now a rich and powerful man – and is dying. He wants to meet Logan to say goodbye. It takes some convincing, but Logan heads off to Japan. Of course, the situation is not quite as simple as he thought it would be – Yashida (Haruhiko Yamanouchi) doesn’t want to say goodbye – he wants Logan’s powers, and thinks he has a way to get them. Logan ends up embroiled in the affairs of a major Japanese corporation – and protecting the innocent Mariko (Tao Okamoto), who everyone seems to want dead.

This is the sixth time (if you include his one scene cameo in First Class) that Jackman has played Logan/Wolverine, and he can do the role in his sleep. This is one of the reasons why in the past I have suggested that perhaps it’s time to cast someone new in the role – and try to make the movies a little darker, since Wolverine is such a dark character to begin with. But in this movie, Jackman proves me wrong – the role is still suited to him, and he’s not sleepwalking through it. The film is a little darker than previous installments of the series – in particular the last stand alone Wolverine movie – and Jackman is up to the challenge. The movie is almost all Jackman – although he is ably supported by an almost entirely Japanese cast – and the movie at times is more of a character study than an action movie. While this is not the best X-Men movie (that’s still a battle between X2 and First Class), this is probably Jackman’s best performance to date as Wolverine – and considering just how long he’s been playing the character, that’s saying something.

The action sequences in the movie are also handled well – for the most part. The most exciting one without doubt in a fight sequence on top of a bullet train, which is exciting and entertaining. There are other good ones – a chase sequence that starts at a funeral for example – that are also handled well – none of that lame rapid-fire editing we normally get. Mangold is more a traditionalist, and he keeps the action on a smaller scale. This works better for me – and makes it more exciting – than say Superman and General Zod destroying whole cities at a time. The movie does go over the top in the climatic fight sequence though – and drags it on too long – but that’s to be expected in these movies. They all do that.

The movie was shot in 3-D, and I have to say, I didn’t see much of a point in it. It doesn’t ruin the movie like bad 3-D can do, but considering the movie is on a smaller scale, I didn’t really see why it needed to be in 3-D, and cannot think of a single sequence that was enhanced by it. The special effects are fine – in keeping with the rest of the movie, they are on a smaller scale than most superhero movies in recent memory, but they are effective.

The Wolverine is not a great movie – and yet, I do think it’s a good one, and rather refreshing. If studios are going to insist on making lots and lots of superhero movies every year (and they seem to) and audiences are going to keep flocking to them (which they seem to be doing), it makes sense to try and do something different – at least every once in a while. And while The Wolverine doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to the genre, it is different than most recent superhero movies. Those ones have started to blend together and be inter-changeable. The Wolverine is not a great superhero movie – but at the very least it’s a different superhero movie – and that’s perhaps even rarer.

Movie Review: Knight and Day

Knight and Day ***
Directed by: James Mangold.
Written By: Patrick O'Neill.
Starring: Tom Cruise (Roy Miller), Cameron Diaz (June Havens), Peter Sarsgaard (Fitzgerald), Jordi Mollà (Antonio), Viola Davis (Director George), Paul Dano (Simon Feck), Falk Hentschel (Bernhard), Marc Blucas (Rodney), Lennie Loftin (Braces), Maggie Grace (April Havens), Rich Manley (Danny), Dale Dye (Frank Jenkins), Celia Weston (Molly).

I have called Tom Cruise a lot of things since he went crazy on his promotional tour for War of the Worlds in 2005 announcing his love for Katie Holmes everywhere he went (batshit crazy being the most common), but I have never called him stupid. Cruise has always been very conscience of his image, and after he got ridiculed, he has done his best to try and rehabilitate himself in the public’s eye. But judging on his performance in Knight and Day, and his ever popular work in Tropic Thunder, I think Cruise may have found his new niche – playing characters who are as batshit insane and intense as he is.

In Knight and Day, Cruise plays Roy Miller a former government agent gone rogue. At an airport in Wichita Kansas he literally bumps into June (Cameron Diaz) twice. They talk, they flirt she thinks they share a connection, and they two end up on the same nearly deserted flight to Boston together. When she goes to the bathroom on the flight, he has to kill everyone else on the plane – including the pilots – because they are all government agents out to kill him and recover whatever it is he has that they want. They end up crash landing in a cornfield, where Miller drugs June and she wakes up in her own bed in Boston the next morning. It all seems too crazy to her to be real, but she tries to go about her life as normal – but that’s when Fitzgerald (Peter Sarsgaard) shows up, tells her that Miller has gone crazy, and offers to protect her if she will help them get what they want – something called the zephyr. But, of course, Miller soon shows up as well, kills a bunch of people, and takes June along for the ride.

The plot twists and turns from there, and we are never quite sure if Miller really has gone insane, or if he is telling the truth. The entire movie is pretty much told from June’s point of view, so on their globetrotting adventures (which seemingly all happen within a couple of days), she is constantly being drugged and waking up somewhere new, with new people trying to kill her and Miller.

The movie is directed by James Mangold, one of those directors who goes through his career making quality movies, but is pretty much impossible to pin done. Among his films are the police drama Cop Land, the chick flick Girl, Interrupted, the horror film Identity, the country music biopic Walk the Line and the western 3:10 to Yuma. There isn’t much connecting these various movies, except that they are all quality movies. I wouldn’t call any of them great, but they all accomplish what they set out to do. Mangold is talented behind the camera and knows how to shoot action sequences – something that cannot be said for many other action filmmakers. If Mangold is a journeyman filmmaker, he is at least a talented one. The action sequences in this movie do not fall into the Michael Bay trap of cutting so rapidly that you cannot tell what the hell is going on. And while they are as impossible as anything I have seen in an action movie, they at least seem plausible while you are watching the movie. In the various car chases, and gun battles, there actually does seem to be something on the line, and he choreographs it all wonderfully well. I will always prefer this type of action to the shaky camera, rapid edit style of action filmmaking that seems to dominate the current thinking of action filmmakers.

But the main reason why Knight and Day works is because of Cruise and Diaz. Cruise has always been a charming actor, and here he really turns on the juice. You like him right away, partly because he is Tom Cruise, and partly because although you think he is insane at certain points, he is always likable. Diaz is our surrogate into this strange world, and does a fine job as well. The movie is smart to know that no matter how good looking Cruise is, if someone like him showed up in your life and starting killing everyone, you would want to run for it – an instinct that she keeps most of the way through the movie even while she’s falling for him. The supporting cast is fine, but underused. Sarsgaard is a typical government bad guy, Viola Davis the typical government bureaucrat, Paul Dano the typical nerdy scienctist and Jordi Molia plays the role he always plays – evil criminal. They are fine, but I wonder if they really needed to cast such talented actors in such nothing roles.

Knight and Day has no allusions that it is anything more than what it is – an entertaining action/romance/comedy. It reminded me of Midnight Run, with a gender twist, or Stanley Donen’s Charade, or Jonathan Demme’s underrated remake The Truth About Charlie. It isn’t quite as good as any of those movie (well, maybe Charlie), but it’s a fine example of its genre. It keeps you entertained from beginning to end – and for a summer movie isn’t that all you really expect from it?