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Post by mekon on Nov 13, 2019 9:11:39 GMT
Went to see this as a freebie the other night in horrible depths of the White Rose Centre outside of Leeds and left with mixed feelings about whether it was any good or not.
The premise is the well documented birth of the GT40 as a rival to Ferrari's run of Le Mans victories but as Steve McQueen proved in his Le Mans film, motorsport and cinema are difficult bedfellows. The main problem being satisfying the general audience and those who like talking about the volumetric effeciency of a GT40 cyclinder at 7rpm. Whilst pure documentaries like Hitting the Apex have managed to do both, once you start to involve big budgets, big actors and an element of story telling then something is going to give to get that box office money back.
Whilst the 1971 Le Mans is like the Rainman of motorsport movies, with Driven being like Rambo, this film sits somewhere inbetween, being neither too serious or too daft. Tbh, I'm sure it'll appeal to those just wanting to watch what essentially is a 'people' movie with spats or motorsport in but if you're the sort of person that loved the 71 Le Mans for it's realism (people actually got maimed for life!) then you'll probably find it infuriating.
Sadly the film suffers from too much CGI, an exagarated sense of speed (especially cornering!) and an overuse of cliched motorsport elements such as the endless gearbox and the throttle pedal that suddenly can be pressed to floor when you really need it. My mate said parts of it reminded him of Herbie goes Bananas but I thought some it resembled Wacky Races given the way the Ferrari drivers were silenty portayed as Dick Dastardly types.
Ultimately it's a film about the people who made the GT40 happen and probably succeeds in telling their story (for me Bayle was playing Guy Martin playing Ken Miles) but I'm a fucking autist when it comes to car movies so it's probably not made for miserable fucks like me.
6/10. See the McQueen one if you want to see the sort of thing that'll never get made by a big studio again. |
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Post by neilf on Nov 13, 2019 10:41:55 GMT
Went to see this as a freebie the other night in horrible depths of the White Rose Centre outside of Leeds and left with mixed feelings about whether it was any good or not.
The premise is the well documented birth of the GT40 as a rival to Ferrari's run of Le Mans victories but as Steve McQueen proved in his Le Mans film, motorsport and cinema are difficult bedfellows. The main problem being satisfying the general audience and those who like talking about the volumetric effeciency of a GT40 cyclinder at 7rpm. Whilst pure documentaries like Hitting the Apex have managed to do both, once you start to involve big budgets, big actors and an element of story telling then something is going to give to get that box office money back.
Whilst the 1971 Le Mans is like the Rainman of motorsport movies, with Driven being like Rambo, this film sits somewhere inbetween, being neither too serious or too daft. Tbh, I'm sure it'll appeal to those just wanting to watch what essentially is a 'people' movie with spats or motorsport in but if you're the sort of person that loved the 71 Le Mans for it's realism (people actually got maimed for life!) then you'll probably find it infuriating.
Sadly the film suffers from too much CGI, an exagarated sense of speed (especially cornering!) and an overuse of cliched motorsport elements such as the endless gearbox and the throttle pedal that suddenly can be pressed to floor when you really need it. My mate said parts of it reminded him of Herbie goes Bananas but I thought some it resembled Wacky Races given the way the Ferrari drivers were silenty portayed as Dick Dastardly types.
Ultimately it's a film about the people who made the GT40 happen and probably succeeds in telling their story (for me Bayle was playing Guy Martin playing Ken Miles) but I'm a fucking autist when it comes to car movies so it's probably not made for miserable fucks like me.
6/10. See the McQueen one if you want to see the sort of thing that'll never get made by a big studio again. Jean Michael Bayle in the film? This sounds like a must see film  |
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Post by Eddie The Bastard on Nov 13, 2019 19:12:32 GMT
Bloody good write up that. Effort appreciated.
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Post by mekon on Nov 13, 2019 19:56:23 GMT
It's still worth seeing but just don't geek out at it. Talking with my mate we both agree the sense of danger of the time was largely missing and this played a big part. The accidents largely had no consequence unlike the 71 version where they ominously hung over the entire film. The whole premise being McQueen's return to the race the year after a fatal accident he was involved in.
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Post by philthewindsurfer on Nov 16, 2019 11:51:10 GMT
Grrr, that went in the wrong thread.
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