At two and a half hours, Ford v Ferrari is a long movie, but it’s so well made that the time flies by at 210 mph.
At the risk of straining your tolerance for metaphors, I’d compare it to a finely tuned racecar: It’s designed to do one very obvious thing, but every piece of it has been so well optimized that seeing it work is a thing of beauty.
As the racers Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, Matt Damon and especially Christian Bale are perfectly cast; the editing is damn near perfect; and the way the script heightens the true-story drama is believable and engaging. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’m not a car person, but I love a good car movie, and this is a great one.
Here’s something I wrote about this movie the last time I saw it, in November (which feels like 5 years ago):
I want to take a moment to also acknowledge Tracy Letts, who plays Henry Ford II and performs a vital role in the film: Humanizing and complicating what would have otherwise been a faceless corporation. Just as in the 2017 film Lady Bird, where he played the title character’s father, Letts is given relatively little to do but brings SO MUCH to every moment he gets.
Still true!