‘Ferrari’ Film Review: Driver and Cruz Rise Above a Lackluster Film

“Ferrari” is one of Michael Mann’s dream projects. Ever since screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin’s adaptation of Brock Yates 1991 Ferrari biography fell into his hands, the filmmaker has been trying to bring the story to the screen. For over twenty years, Mann’s project went through the normal Hollywood fits and starts of ever changing cast members, financiers dropping in and out, and finding the right studio to fully back the production.

While Michael Mann is certainly a unique craftsman whose filmography has earned him the right to be praised as one of cinema’s finest, he hasn’t done anything truly worthy since the excellence of 1999’s “The Insider”, which stands as one of his greatest works. 2004’s “Collateral” was a very good, but almost Michael Mann-lite. The 2001 biopic “Ali” was a dreadful slog that failed to capture what made the boxer so special. 2015’s “Blackhat” was a compromised mess that can almost be seen as self-parody. Mann’s too-serious big screen version of “Miami Vice” was passable, and less said about 2009’s “Public Enemies”, the better.

With “Ferrari” Mann returns to more serious filmmaking and this story is certainly made for the big screen; deep character exploration in a large dramatic scope is where the director excels. Brock Yates’ book contains over 400 pages of personal and historical context, covering the decades in the life of Enzo Ferrari. The author gets to what made drive this man, covering many races and detailing the intricacies of both Ferrari’s knowledge of car design and business. As Yates’ biography found steady balance in Ferrari’s professional and personal lives, Mann’s film feels narratively disjointed, merely skimming the dramatic surface of such a huge life.

Set in 1957, the film finds Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) still mourning the death of his son, Dino, who died from muscular dystrophy. Whether this tragedy was the catalyst for Enzo’s hard exterior and cold manner is left unexplained, as the exploration of grief and its after effects on the man drew the short straw. Enzo Ferrari was a man with demons, but the film cannot seem to break through his psychological shell.

Enzo has a young woman he loves. Lina (an embarrassingly miscast Shailene Woodley, whose cartoonish accent comes and goes) lives in a beautiful countryside home (paid for by Enzo) where she raises their 12-year-old son, Piero. Lina tries to be happy, but is tired of being the other woman and wants Enzo to herself. Most important, she rightfully demands he publicly recognize Piero as his own, as the boy deserves the Ferrari name and (for better or worse) everything that comes with it.

Unfortunately, Martin’s screenplay fails to show why Enzo is in so deep with Lina. Their scenes together are downers and the two seem as if they cannot stand to share the same space. Enzo cannot even manage a smile when speaking with his young son. Though unaware of Lina and Piero and the home her husbands pays for, Enzo’s wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz, giving the film’s best performance), is done with his infidelities and has turned into a sad and bitter woman who takes to threatening him with a pistol to get a reaction.

As he finds his company close to bankruptcy, Enzo shifts his focus to the Mille Miglia, a supremely dangerous 1,000-mile race across Italy. A win would restore both the company’s reputation and put Ferrari the man back on financial top. The race makes up the final act. This is where Mann finds some brilliance in his storytelling and achieves a brief slice of filmmaking awe. The race is a near breathtaking montage of roaring engines and high speed closeups where the drivers traverse the treacherous roads at deadly speeds. Mann and cinematographer Erik Messerschmidt put the audience in the middle of the race with incredible skill, achieving some of the most stunning car racing shots since John Frankenheimer’s “Grand Prix” and Lee H. Katzin’s “Le Mans” with Steve McQueen.

Anyone familiar with the outcome of the race, knows that it ends in both victory and tragedy. Toward the finish, there is a crash that Mann and his team craft into one of the most striking ever committed to film. The moment is as jarring as it is devastating. Due to the combined dedication of Mann, Messerschmitt, and editor Pietro Scalia, the virtuoso sequence is absolutely jaw-dropping.

As Enzo Ferrari, Adam Driver is quite good. The actor looks stylish as the silver-haired racing tycoon, sulking around the frame with an almost constant stone face (and pretty much pulling off his version of a not-bad Italian accent), but the screenplay fails to make him interesting beyond the fact that he is the man who birthed the Ferrari line. In the same issue that sunk the director’s “Ali”, Mann fails to make Enzo Ferrari’s fascinating story catch fire. Much of the drama becomes too passive and empty.

Mann’s films have always had an ambient aesthetic (something that made “Thief”, “Manhunter”, and “The Insider” so unique), but here the characters become a mere hum in the well-crafted atmosphere.

Besides the brilliantly designed race that takes up the final act, it is Penélope Cruz whose fearless work gives the film its true spark. The actress embodies the sadness of a wife who no longer has her husband’s heart. Losing their son has killed Laura, her marriage, and her happiness. Cruz’s piercing “Hell hath no fury” performance is heartbreaking and alive and worthy of an Oscar nomination. Enzo and Laura’s confrontations have a power that should have fueled the entire film, rather than existing as the only moments that hit.

Michael Mann’s “Ferrari”is far from a bad film and there picture has good moments. Beyond Cruz’s great work and the fantastic Mille Miglia sequence, there is something visceral in the way Mann films the cars, allowing the audience to take in the superior craftsmanship from the Italian car designers. As the engines roar in full-on Dolby and Messerschmidt’s camera panning down the steel exteriors, there is an almost (auto) eroticism to the director’s vision that is occasionally intoxicating.

Michael Mann is one of cinema’s finest, but even the best filmmakers can’t always find themselves out in front. “Ferrari” looks great and has some strong moments, but not enough to cross the finish line.