Perhaps the most damning thing a film can do to a figure who carries an almost mythological historical weight is to buy directly into those myths, only to later pull the rug out from under the audience.
Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” plays directly into this method, reinforcing a godlike image of auto mogul Enzo Ferrari, played by Adam Driver, and his empire before letting it all — literally — crash to the ground. But despite his attempts to examine how capital corrupts, Mann spends far too much time buying into the mythos of Ferrari and loving every second of it.
The film follows Enzo Ferrari and the intersecting disputes in his professional and personal life as he approaches a milestone race for the Ferrari company. While Ferrari still thrives culturally, the business is barely keeping afloat as debt soars and competitor Maserati dominates on the racetrack.
Ferrari’s hometown of Modena, Italy, thrives economically and culturally off of the production of his cars. Mann’s motif of racing as a religion in Modena is about as subtle as a billboard — in the first act, a priest monologues to his congregation of car manufacturers that if Jesus was alive today, he would be a metalworker in an automotive factory instead of a carpenter.
And in a world devoted to cars, Enzo is the god who shapes it — the lives of the racers are placed in the hands of his engines, his designs and his metal.
The world can’t take their eyes off of Ferrari, and Erik Messerschmidt’s cinematography forces the audience to do the same. There are far too many increasingly uncomfortable closeups of Enzo’s stoic face which convey nothing other than his sociopathic desire for dominance.
Mann is overzealous to indulge in crafting the image of a cold and ruthless artist shrouded by mythos, but this technique isn’t enough to imbue humanity into a character — it simply creates a statue.
Adam Driver, despite his surname, falls just as flat. His performance is nothing more than an uncanny reconstruction, with an accent fit for a cartoon chef on a pizza box.
The disputes in his personal and professional life do less to humanize him than they do to add narrative tension, building to the inevitable public demise that the film is constantly implying.
Even with an underwhelming first two acts, Mann is able to keep the viewer’s faith as they anticipate the riveting race that “Ferrari” is building to.
The film is dotted with viscerally exhilarating racing scenes in between Enzo’s long, droning personal drama, serving as kicks of adrenaline to build an appetite for a thrilling finale. But somehow, “Ferrari” fumbles with its conclusion.
The harrowing finale comes as a punch of energy to an otherwise sedated film –– but it can’t maintain the stamina for long.
The vivacity of this conclusion is undercut with distracting sound design, nauseating mixing and a poorly incorporated score that pulls in and out of the soundscape abruptly. These melodramatic ploys are frustrating and prevent even the film’s strongest sequences from packing any punch.
From the beginning, Mann’s “Ferrari” doesn’t hold any water. Though it tries to, the film can’t tear down the image of a man because it hardly built it up in the first place –– beyond a symbol of adoration and spectacle. The film’s classical composition and artisan facade just embellish the boring emptiness within it –– “Ferrari” is an impersonal failure at a detailed portrait.
