Shailene Woodley

Ferrari

04/01/24

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Director Michael Mann has been plying his trade since the late 60s, with varying degrees of success, occasionally coming up with pure gold with films like The Last of the Mohicans and Heat. Recently, he’s concentrated on more personal works and Ferrari is very much a passion project, something he’s been tinkering with for years, based on a screenplay by the late Troy Kennedy Martin.

It’s not the kind of biopic we might have expected, but instead focuses on a single turbulent year in Enzo Ferrari’s life(1957), when his iconic sports car company is speeding dangerously close to extinction, mainly because Enzo (a convincingly-aged Adam Driver) is much more interested in his cars winning races than he is in selling them.

Meanwhile, his domestic life is also a holy mess. Since the untimely death of his much-loved son, Enzo has become estranged from his wife, Laura (a smouldering Penélope Cruz, threatening in every scene to steal the film from its titular hero). Enzo is spending much of his spare time in the company of his mistress, Lina (Shailene Woodley), with whom he has another son. This seems to be an open secret in Enzo’s neighbourhood of Modena, but Laura is yet to find out – and there are sure to be fireworks when she does.

And then Enzo’s business manager gives him an ultimatum. If he wants to sell enough cars to save the company, he must enter – and win – the gruelling Mille Miglia road race, at the same time seeing off his main competitor, Maserati. If he fails, it will be game over.

So, no pressure.

Ferrari is a handsome production, the 1950s era convincingly evoked right down to the last detail. Despite the nominative determinism, Driver doesn’t get to sit behind a steering wheel unless you count the knackered old jalopy in which he putters around the countryside. It’s left to younger men like the ambitious Alfonso de Potago (Gabriel Leone) or old hand Peter Collins (Jack O’Connell) to climb into those vintage cars and send them roaring around the track.

The racing scenes are perhaps the film’s strongest suit, the cars screaming along country roads with such visceral intensity you can almost smell the petrol, feel the wheels juddering beneath you. Incredibly, the cars had no roll bars back then, not even seat belts, so accidents were generally disastrous. One such scene is so brilliantly staged it actually has me exclaiming two words out loud (the first of them being ‘Oh!’). In another sequence, a nerve-wracking race is intercut with scenes of Enzo at a church service, amplifying the point that, in Modena, sports car racing is perceived as a kind of religion. And I Iove the scene on the eve of Mille Miglia where drivers write letters to their partners, for all the world like soldiers about to go into battle.

There’s plenty to enjoy in Ferrari but it won’t be for everyone. Petrolheads will doubtless feel that there isn’t enough actual racing to keep them happy, while the many scenes of marital discord and the various wheelings and dealings behind the scenes can sometimes feel suspiciously like padding. But there’s no doubting Mann’s obsession with his subject and his ability to capture every detail with considerable flair.

Ferrari offers a distinctly bumpy ride, with no opportunity to strap in.

3.6 stars

Philip Caveney

The Mauritanian

11/04/21

Amazon Prime Video

The Mauritanian has received mixed reviews, but I find it hard to see why anyone outside the “flog’ em, hang ’em” brigade would have a negative reaction here. It’s a nuanced and informative piece, making public the true story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahar Rahim), the eponymous young Mauritanian, who, suspected of links to Al Quaeda, was detained without charge at Guantanamo Bay for fourteen long years.

Kevin Macdonald’s film never points the reader in the direction of Slahi’s guilt or innocence, because that’s literally the point: we don’t know, and neither do the people who incarcerated him. Defence lawyer Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) reinforces the importance of this when she admonishes her young assistant, Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley), for responding emotionally to Shahi’s written confession. ‘Everyone is entitled to a defence,’ she tells her, and, ‘Since when did this country start locking people up without a trial?’ Because Slahi has been picked up on the flimsiest of evidence, and if we lose haebus corpus then surely we lose the right to refer to our legal system as ‘justice.’

Military prosecutor Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch, who is – disconcertingly – even more convincing as a US army man than he is as an English toff) is tasked with representing the state and, initially, he’s more than willing. Shahi is accused of plotting the 9/11 terror attack, where Couch lost a close personal friend. But Couch is a man of principle, and he can’t proceed in good conscience when he realises that Shahi’s confession was coerced through torture, and that the rule of law has been abandoned. Couch wants the guilty parties to pay – but he wants to make sure they are, actually, guilty. (He’s picky like that!)

Rahim is a revelation in the central role. He is charming, erudite, angry and afraid. The torture scenes – artfully shot, hallucinatory flashbacks – are horrifying; no one, no matter what they’ve done, should be brutalised this way. Foster shines as you’d expect her to, depicting a version of Hollander that is all grim determination and moral rectitude, a fierce advocate for doing the right thing.

This isn’t an exciting film: it’s the slow, careful unveiling of an unpalatable truth – namely, that the USA is violating its own doctrine in a detention camp deliberately situated far beyond its shores. Out of sight, out of mind, seems to be the hope, but – as long as there are people like Hollander in the world – they will, hopefully, eventually, be called to account. In the meantime, there are still more than forty prisoners there, and their plight needs addressing.

The Mauritanian is well worth a few hours of your time.

4.1 stars

Susan Singfield