Ford V Ferrari

Opens August 28 • 20th Century Fox

- Carmela Maraan Fernandoa

FORD V FERRARI is the true-to-life story of American automotive designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), who defies professional odds when motor moguls Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts) and Lee Iaccoca (Jon Bernthal) hire him to design the new Ford GT40. The catch? This car will compete against the award-winning Ferrari race cars at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France. The other catch? Shelby has only a few weeks to develop and design that car, and at that time, the ever-reliable Ford has never been a brand for the tracks.

It’s basically the story of turning a cart-horse into a highly competitive dark horse. Except that this is the real-life underdog tale of a world-renowned market leader.

The stakes go higher when Shelby teams up with the fearless yet volatile Ken Miles (Christian Bale), a prominent British race driver who’s set to drive the upcoming Ford race car. Together, they’ll face corporate opposition as well as their personal demons if it means revolutionizing the well-known car brand—and getting a crack at winning.

Directed by James Mangold and written by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller, Ford v Ferrari was initially supposed to star Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. The project was temporarily halted after its first script draft came out, then in 2018, it picked up with a new production team and cast.

It’s just as well because we’re seeing a lot of great on-screen chemistry between Damon and Bale. Which is critical, since in real life, their characters have fostered a solid friendship, and together they also developed and tested other race car models like the GT40 MkII, Shelby Cobra, and Mustang GT350.