Matt Damon and Christian Bale in one movie? Will this be a good one? Matt Damon stars as Carroll Shelby, that famous race car driver, automotive designer and builder while Christian Bale as Ken Miles, a British War Veteran and eccentric professional race car driver.
The movie starts off with Lee Iacocca, then Vice President of Ford Motor company proposing to Henry Ford II to buy the financially strapped Ferrari of Italy. He felt that for the company to boost its sales, Ford company must race its cars in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Enzo Ferrari had other plans, he used the meeting with Lee Iacocca to drive up the selling price of his company with Fiat. After hearing Fiat's increased offer price, Enzo then turns down Lee's offer and proceeds to insult Henry Ford II in Lee's face.
Being called fat and that Ford's cars were inferior, an infuriated Ford CEO, then commands to build a racing department to build a race car to defeat Ferrari in Le Mans. Money was no object so Lee Iacocca got Caroll Shelby as its automotive designer and builder and him hiring Ken Miles as its professional race car driver. They had a prototype car with the Ford GT40 Mk 1 and both guys tested it till it was race worthy. They had a chance to race in the 1965 Le Mans (without Ken Miles) to test the car however this one blew up and was not able to finish. Henry Ford II would like to shutdown the race development project but was dissuaded by Caroll Shelby. He pointed our to the company CEO that they have shown to Enzo Ferrari that they have a car that could beat Ferrari, just before it blew up that is. With this explanation, Henry again instructed Shelby to proceed in preparation for the next Le Mans.
Shelby was pushing for Ken Miles as the driver but Race Director of Ford, Leo Beebe wasn't keen on Ken. Shelby was able to arrange for Ken to race in NASCAR but Beebe fielded another Ford team in the same race. Ken won that race even if the other team was better at pit stop service.
When the next Le Mans race came, 1966, Ken was finally fielded in the race. At first he struggles with a faulty door, hampering his driving and after the first lap, their lead engineer hammered it in to shut and off Ken to race again. Ken wowed the crowd of record breaking lap times one after another just to catch up with the Ferrari team. Finally Ferrari's car blew up and its up to Ken to race the Ford car to victory, but he was advised by Leo Beebe to slow down and wait for the two other Ford team drivers to have a great three car photo at the finish line. Although Ken was the fastest, it was McLaren, the other Ford driver who won the race on a technicality. Shelby was furious at Leo Beebe for this but Ken Miles wasn't bitter that he was robbed of a win. Instead he thanked Shelby for giving him that chance to race at Le Mans.
Months after the race, the duo of Shelby and Miles continued to test their cars for improvements. In one of the test rides Ken made, he experienced a brake failure that lead to his death. He never got to see Ford win Le Mans again the following year 1967, 1968 and 1969.
Matt Damon was great here as the charismatic Caroll Shelby however it was Christian Bale as that loud mouth British racer who took the movie and made it a winner. Bale was so into his character that we forget he is Christian Bale, and we wonder if Ken Miles acted and looked like him in the movie. Everytime he shows up in the scene we stop and watch him closely. Matt we can let his scenes pass as we see that in some scenes he was just winging it. In scenes that Shelby was disheartened to tell Miles the bad news, yes plural, news, Matt's face was almost the same, his acting were the same. This was totally opposite when Ken Miles comes in a scene. We love the way he threw that wrench at Matt Damon. It was the only time that we saw Matt Damon really acted like that, surprised and bewildered as Bale threw that wrench menacingly and luckily it hit (or he missed Damon) the car's windshield.
Other character worthy of appreciation were of Josh Lucas as Leo Beebe, the company senior executive vice president with the bad decisions. He was also good that he makes our blood boil whenever we hear him speak his lines. Another actors worthy of praise were the car owners Tracy Letts (as Henry Ford II) and Remo Girone (as Enzo Ferrari). Letts had a great scowl that we see typical of CEO's, always grumpy while Girone with his Italian speaking lines, was passable to be the enigmatic Scuderia Ferrari owner.
The story line was clear, it was a car war between Ford and Ferrari but mostly it was Ford who does the story telling. This was their side of the story. Development of the characters were nicely done, we saw firsthand how Shelby started out as a race car driver then he retired after winning the Le Mans. Nobody knew then why he quit, so it was nice it was shown in the movie. Ken Miles also had a character development that we found useful in telling of his characterization of the role. What we missed however was the connection of the two. Did I just missed it or it wasn't there at all? All I know after showing the two worlds of our lead, boom they were together. I let it pass and I just trusted the story, as I was after the fight between the two car companies.
We liked how the story flowed, it wasn't boring and slow but it wasn't fast either. It was just done beautifully, well played out and the scenes were nicely done. Although the movie showed a lot of Shelby in it, we believed this was a Ken Miles film. Most of the pivotal scenes involve Miles and of how it affected him, of how he decides either to go along with it or do a Ken Miles thing, being a hard headed bloke.
The movie in whole won't be an Oscar Awards contender, we do like to nominate it, but it would squeak hard to get in, we do like Christian Bale at least get a nomination for Best Actor here. Looking at the hierarchy of roles here, Ken Miles is under Caroll Shelby but acting wise, Christian Bale was truly awesome here.
