Title – Ferrari (2023) 

Director – Michael Mann (Heat) 

Cast – Adam Driver, Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley

Plot – Examines the year 1957 in the life of famed auto empire magnate Enzo Ferrari (Driver) as he and his team push themselves to the limits to get the Ferrari brand back on the winners list. 

“This is a gun pointed at our head”

Review by Eddie on 19/01/2024

Undoubtedly buoyed and inspired by the critical and commercial success of 2019 racing car hit Ford vs. Ferrari, renowned director Michael Mann (who was a producer on that film) and his financial backers were clearly confident that gifting close to $100 million dollars to delve into a cinematic venture exploring the life and times of legendary car enthusiast and designer Enzo Ferrari was a chance to get wallets open and awards flowing. 

Able to view this film a few weeks after the critical dust and audience/box office reception has settled and become apparent, it’s clear to see that Mann’s Adam Driver starring dramatic venture wasn’t able to get out on the wide open track and find its place in the world, with the film arriving and stagnating across the globe with a mixture of so-so reviews, far from embracing audiences and extremely poor box office receipts leading to a sad outcome for a film and a director that had more to give. 

Suffering from more than a decades worth of uninspired products such as Blackhat and Miami Vice and disappointments like Public Enemies and the quickly axed TV series Luck, many hoped that Mann’s long gestating passion project centred around Ferrari would bring us back the director many came to know and love with such classics as The Last of the Mohicans, Heat and The Insider but while the final product here isn’t a complete write off, there’s an inescapable feeling that Ferrari should’ve been so much more. 

A passable but forgettable cinematic offering that its real life protagonist would’ve surely demanded more from, Mann’s film focuses in on one particular year in the life of Enzo Ferrari set in 1957 but while this year has all the makings of an engaging cinematic property with rivalries, personal issues, racing and history defining feats all a part of this 12 month period Mann is never able to juggle all his components together making this racing themed drama more of a Ferrari tale done the way of Days of our Lives. 

For those seeking the same type of on track thrills or insights into the often complicated world of car manufacturing and the racing world that were to be found in the aforementioned Ford vs. Ferrari or even 2013’s Rush, they will likely be left wanting by Ferrari’s delivery that isn’t afraid to stop the heart racing four-wheeled spectacles it rarely shows with scenes of Enzo checking into a hotel or his wife Laura walking down the street with some shopping and by willing to be more than just a film about cars or a film that explores deeply the man Enzo was, Mann and his film alienate anyone from really connecting with the film, regardless of what they were expecting. 

With so much human drama taking most of the screen time allotted it’s a shame that outside of a fiery Penelope Cruz as the permanently upset Laura there’s little in the way of acting wins in Ferrari with Driver in particular unable to make much of an impression of a man that’s hard to love, while the likes of Shailene Woodley, Patrick Dempsey and a criminally underused Jack O’Connell get little to work with in a film that has flashes of brilliance but relatively little too say across its two hour plus running time. 

There’s a fascinating figure of history to explore in the form of Enzo Ferrari and at the very least exciting and gripping tales of which he was directly involved with but for anyone seeking their interest levels into this man or his exploits to be meet, it’s unlikely Ferrari is going to feed that appetite.  

Final Say – 

An expensive and lavish film that lacks the heart, charms or structure to do a proper justice to its main character or the world in which he operated in, Ferrari is a watchable film but an undeniably disappointing one, failing to do justice to a story one hopes can be revisited and explored in a much more memorable future iteration. 

2 1/2 flashback inducing operas out of 5