FERRARI by Michael Mann

Yeah I figured someone would call me out on that. Maybe not one of the greats of all time. I'd say it's one of the greatest over the last couple of years or so. I know, faint praise given the crap Hollywood has put out recently.

 

Exactly. Hollywood of late has produced scant little 'great' movies as far as I'm concerned. I'm the 'old' demographic, so they don't cater to my tastes.

 

I just saw it yesterday and I agree. I liked it because I’m such a Ferrari fan but I felt bad for my kids and wife who were bored out of their minds.

It really is impossible to try and capture all the complicated nuances in Ferrari’s life in a thrilling way. Even I found myself getting impatient waiting for the racing scenes.

Lol, I’ll take some heat for this but if I’m being honest I liked Ford vs. Ferrari much, much better. In fact, I’ll stop and rewatch it every time I see it channel surfing. Rush too. Can’t say I’ll do the same with Ferrari.

 

In a nutshelll, it ended up being a movie about a guy that built some race cars in 1957, with that main theme that he had some serious marital issues.
The liner notes at the end highlighted the family's resolve, with no mention at all about all the success Ferrari achieved over the years.

 

Exactly

 

Overall, it was ok. I did get a good parking space though.

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I didn't mind the crash at the end I think it helps some the newer generation see how deadly the sport was in those years. You took your life in your hands when you got behind the wheel and if you were on the side lines you could almost touch the race cars. But you were risking your life doing so. My only issue was that the crash is what was largely left in people minds when they walked away. As to little came after that which made the film much darker and loose a lot of its lustre it stopped being a snapshot from Enzo's life at that point. They needed a good 30 min of content after the crash to pull the film back on track and into it focus.

 

Very good point that’s all my wife and I talked about on the way home another 20 min of Ferraris accomplishments would have helped a lot

 

The other night we watched The Right Stuff for the third or fourth time. It occurred to me that Ferrari might have been better had it been similar in scope. That is, cover the lives of some interesting people doing extraordinary things, which it does, but in the context of several years of their lives, not just one. While I haven’t seen Ferrari, the more I read comments of people who have, the more I get the feeling that it doesn’t play well, the idea of just carving out one year. What character development there is must necessarily be pretty abrupt…and several people have commented that it is a movie about the characters, not the cars. I get that. In fact, the older I get the more interesting I find the people and the less interesting I find the cars, relatively speaking. So I have no problem with it not being a car movie. I do have a problem with a character movie being about just one year in those characters’ lives. Still, I plan to see it, mostly because of the comments in the forums, and mostly for the locations!

 

Went in expecting typical Hollywood garbage, and have to say, I enjoyed the movie as did my wife and two sons. I thought Adam Driver would be a horrible Enzo but I have to say he gave a good performance. I found Ferrari to be a nice little serious excerpt from his life. It did transport me to that time although I have no idea how accurate the movie is. I found the movie gave me a little more context to all the black and white photos and stories of Ferrari I have seen over the years. I liked the subtle use of the cars and factory. Two stand out scenes for me are when Ferrari and Scaglietti are watching a race from a little TV while sitting on little chairs drinking wine in the garage. The other scene being the start of the Mille Miglia in the dark with Enzo giving advice to the drivers. I felt I was there. I will say the big CGI crash scene at the end was not done well at all and it detracted. It could have been shot from afar with more subtlety and greater impact. The movie looked and sounded great on the big screen.

 

You haven't seen it yet?! Shame on you, what are you waiting for;-) Go on you will appreciate it, not everybody on Fchat can.

 

Hi, Marc. Well, the nearest theatre is 75 miles away and I’ve been saddled with bronchitis for about two weeks My doctor says I’m not contagious but I don’t think the people in the theatre will appreciate my hacking cough! I’ll see it eventually, without fail.

 

Ouch, very sorry Jack, get better!

 

i was disappointed when Enzo said his pronouns were “them,they”.

 

Get well soon!

Marcel Massini

 

Thank you, Marcel.

 

Thank you, Marc. I feel fine, sound awful.

 

Thanks, Bruce!

 

Just saw it tonight.. I thought the era of story was lacking in substance to make a great movie, they should have expanded the time frame.

But what i really disliked was the racing scenes. As soon as the one of drivers dropped a gear to go faster on a straight i was out. Why does Hollywood insist on doing this.. Aarrrggggg!

It was fun/dumb to take the Pista out for a lively drive in almost freezing conditions with salt all over the roads..

 

Saw the movie last night and walked out a bit unimpressed. Thought more about it today and was quite annoyed with a great number of things about it.

I think Adam Driver did a decent job with the script he was given, though I would have preferred another actor. Penelope Cruz was acidic and electric, in a good way - she really carried the plot along about the failing marriage and grief about their son. Shailene Woodley was so bad. I thought that Enzo had an American mistress

 

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The script was really quite poor overall - it’s a movie about an unlikeable man living a double life with another woman and child. It’s not a particularly compelling story about that scenario and not one I really cared to learn about in the case of Ferrari. I simply don’t care about that aspect of this character. I had hoped for a focus on how these cars came to be, what drove Enzo to create them, why racing was so important, what the ethos of the brand was. Instead it was a pretty dull drama about marriage/infidelity.


When the racing actually started, it was shot very well. The sound was superb. Twisty roads in the mountains were gorgeous. I didn’t really get a sense of who these drivers were as they were loosely introduced and sent on their way. The gruesome crash occurred and the check cashed and the money was to be used to bribe the press. It felt like the first hour and a half could have been cut and a different movie added afterwards. Like the drama and story occurred in the last 20 minutes and were never dealt with or explained.


Lastly the cemetery scene where the final dialogue is Piero asking about the autograph. And no mention about the crash or his death. Followed by text explaining that Piero runs the show today. It seemed like a rather callous way to conclude.


I avoided reading anything about this movie before seeing it and I was surprised at how much it seemed to miss the mark. It wasn’t a car movie and it wasn’t a good drama either, and it left me wondering why tell this story.

 

Dempsey is a Porsche guy. Let's see if he likes pasta from here on out.

 

The last part when Penelope returned all the money and demanded Piero not carrying the last name was the highlight of the movie to me. So dense and powerful performance.