Before all you Matt Damon and Christian Bale hopefuls come swinging at me with a nice, hefty wrench, letâs all step back a bit.

Ford v Ferrari, on paper, has always been my dream as a motor enthusiast to see recreated on film. The story of plucky driver Ken Miles and his adventures on the famed 13-odd kilometres of Le Mans were like campfire stories of old for racing fans - told through the ages by countless books, documentaries and the like. You can feel it on the pages of the 2009 book Go Like Hell and its tense, minute-by-minute interview recollections, you can feel it when watching that much-loved TopGear special with the GT40.

But you cannot 'feel' it while watching Ford v Ferrari, and hereâs goddamn why.

1. For A Racing Film, The Pacing Is Stuck In First Gear

© 20th Century Fox

Donât get me wrong, itâs fun to watch the racing itself, for a while - the sounds and angles captured are enjoyable especially in a theatre setting. I will, however, admit that I got a bit tired of watching the camera cut constantly to Bale and his ever-deepening grimace during these sequences.

No, the problem here is with pace - the editing kind. For a film all about racing, the opening 45 minutes or so are painfully sluggish and the reason seems abundantly clear. Throughout the film, it seems that director James Mangold has gone out of his way to provide a âmoralâ to the events of Le Mans - clumsily hammering the chaotic events surrounding â66 into an overused feel-good template that weâve seen in every sports film, ever. 

2.   Dialogue Writing? Whatâs That?

© 20th Century Fox

Granted, the film does have a few good dialogue moments (youâll see below) - itâs the inconsistency here that pulls the film down severely. Characters constantly state the obvious - from the unnamed Porsche executive who early on observes Ken Miles (Christian Bale) and mutters, âAh, he is good, but difficultâ - mere seconds after we see Ken lose his cool, smash the windshield of his car and proceed to win the race. 

No shit, Mr Porsche.

This would have mattered at least a little if the character had some kind of plot relevance, but unfortunately, heâs discarded in a mere four minutes of screentime. The problem rears its head again towards the end of the film. When Carrol Shelby (Matt Damon) needs to spur on Ken during crucial moments of a preliminary race, thereâs no snappy words or realistic rag-tag solution to the limitations of their race team - Ken is simply told to go faster, and the film treats this âadviceâ as some kind of messianic revelation.

3.  The Wrong Title

© 20th Century Fox

Midway through the flick, thereâs this one scene that I believe actually captured the spirit of what makes the â66 story so interesting - when the fiery Italian-American rivalry between Ferrari Enzo and Henry Ford II gets ignited. Played by Remo Girone, Enzo spits out a string of obscenities in Italian at Fordâs executive (played by Jon Bernthal of Punisher fame) - itâs gloriously fun to watch and is more than inspired by similar scenes in films like The Godfather.

Unfortunately, this is the only real Ford v Ferrari moment in the film. Despite the incredible potential for playing around with the heavy-handed corporate figures that literally have the names Ford and Ferrari, the film chooses to focus on Kenâs private life instead, and quiet dad-son moments that feel more Disney than Daytona. 

Nothing wrong there again - but certainly nothing new for serious film enthusiasts, and nothing interesting for gearheads either.

4.  Historical Inaccuracies

© 20th Century Fox

Straying away from the facts in historical films is a thin line to walk, and it seems that filmmakers choose to either walk that line with absolute focus (Black Hawk Down), backflip off the line in spectacular chaos (Inglourious Basterds) but more often than not, stumble their way towards the credits and quietly show themselves out.

This film is clearly the latter. There are a few cherry-picked moments of historical clarity - the yarn air resistance test and removable brakes were neat, accurate nods towards the world of 1960s racing tech. Unfortunately, the film takes massive dramatic liberties with what it pays the most attention to - its characters. 

Shelby and Miles get into full-fledged fistfights in the movie, which Shelby (in his biography) claims was never the kind of relationship they had. Strapping the Ford CEO into a racecar without protection was another dramatic twist of fact, while even the final scenes made major changes to the original tale - going so far as to change Milesâ death so that it poetically fits in with a forgettable line from earlier in the film.

5.   Everyone Is A Stereotype

© 20th Century Fox

For me, this is the greatest sin this film commits and it does so with pretty much every single character. Miles is a stubborn racer, and nothing else. Shelby is a good-boy car designer, and nothing else (despite the real-life Shelby going through multiple marriages and raunchy detours from them during the years depicted in the film). 

Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas) plays the creepy marketing head-honcho for Ford, and is never given a chance to hold his role with some kind of justification or backstory - all he appears as is a moustache-twirling executive who wants Miles gone, because the film needs a villain to maintain its âmoral of the storyâ.

All in all, the film quite simply isnât on par with the rest of the Oscar lineup - and feels like an old white manâs film designed for a white manâs jury. 

While films such as Parasite play around with nuanced social satire and Joker weaves together psychological narratives with stellar acting, the good bits of Ford v Ferrari seems much like the fate of Ken Miles at the 24 Hours of Le Mans â66 - underutilised, underappreciated and pulled down for the sake of looking good.

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