“Ford v Ferrari” stars Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby, a race car designer, and Christian Bale as Ken Miles, a hot headed but wickedly talented race car driver. Shelby and Miles team up with Ford to try to create a race car fast enough to beat Ferrari at Le Mans, a 24 hour Grand Prix.

I am not a racing fan, but the racing scenes were maybe my favorite part. The movie does a great job at making you think anything could go wrong at any moment. Throughout the movie, there are crazy car crashes, fires, and everything in between. This makes the suspense incredible. 

This suspense is amplified by Christian Bale and Matt Damon’s performances. They are great in this movie. Bale plays a hothead really well, and it was fun to see the two interact. Damon also does a great job of playing the chiller one that can still lose their cool. I thought they built up Bale’s character more than Damon’s, but they both still made their characters interesting and entertaining. 

Another interesting theme this movie talked about was the problem of corporations getting in the way of actually doing what’s best. Shelby and Miles constantly have to deal with Ford sticking their nose in their work and messing everything up. I thought the sliminess of these characters from Ford was well done. I hated every single one of them, which means they did their job well. 

My biggest issue was the lack of risk taken by this movie. Many of the other Best Picture nominees have something about them that’s interesting and unique to them. Style and story wise, this feels dull. The story was super predictable. I understand that this was based off of a true story, but there aren’t any risks in how the movie was made either. The racing is cool, the actors are cool, but that’s the level of depth this movie has. 

There’s nothing here that’s going to be missed on first viewing, and there’s nothing really wrong with that. This is a fun movie with entertaining characters and a feel good story. The company dynamic with the main characters was also intriguing. If you’re looking for a fun, simple, well made movie, this is a great choice. If you’re looking for something more, try something else. I give “Ford v Ferrari” a 3.5/5.