Ferrari is Michael Mann’s upcoming biographical drama based on the life of Enzo Ferrari – the automotive mogul behind the Ferrari car brand. He is often credited as the man who practically spawned the idea of Formula One racing. This is Mann’s first venture since 2015’s disappointing Blackhat. Adam Driver, one of the finest actors of our times, will be in the leading role of Enzo. The film also has Hugh Jackman and Penelope Cruz in supporting roles. Just this week, we got the first trailer of the film and I loved it. The vision behind the film is so strong that the trailer didn’t have any dialogues but just epic sound editing and visuals. The Michael Mann directorial recently premiered at the Venice Film Festival and received a 6 minute long standing ovation which left Adam Driver tear eyed. Currently, Ferrari has 81% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.4/10 score on IMDb. We have collected the critics’ thoughts below.
Ferrari Reviews Roundup – An Exceptional Biopic!
Richard Lawson (Vanity Fair) – “It’s been a long wait to see another of Mann’s muscular visions on the big screen, and while Ferrari is perhaps more muted than some might hope for, it’s a pleasure to watch the filmmaker explore some new styles and timbres.”
Marlow Stern (Rolling Stone) – “There is an unstoppable force at the center of Michael Mann’s Ferrari. It is fast, fierce, and wildly unpredictable. One moment it has you in the throes of ecstasy; the next, fearing for your life… I’m talking, of course, about Penélope Cruz.”
Alonso Duralde (The Film Verdict) – “That rarest of films: the complex, complicated biopic. Like his subject, Mann appreciates beauty and power while never forgetting that beauty can wither and power can destroy; within that matrix of messy contradictions, he creates haunting drama.”
Kevin Maher {Times (UK)} – “Adam Driver is back in Italian biopic mode… to play Enzo Ferrari in this handsomely made, competently performed but ultimately quite empty drama from the veteran film-maker Michael Mann (Heat).” Original Score: 2/5
Hannah Strong (Little White Lies) – “Perhaps there’s a different version of Ferrari that feels more compelling, but there’s precious little to be done about the by-the-book storytelling, which doesn’t do justice to such rich subject matter.”
Fionnuala Halligan (Screen International) – “This is a refined, exquisite — expensive — production, but Ferrari doesn’t step up the gears fast and furious enough for wider appeal.”
Ben Croll (TheWrap) – “Ferrari dawdles, then dazzles, and finally disturbs.”
Stephanie Zacharek (TIME Magazine) – “It’s a supple, elegant film, the kind of picture you’d expect from a vigorous craftsman like Mann, who hasn’t made a movie since the 2015 cybercrime thriller Black Hat.”
Robbie Collin {Daily Telegraph (UK)} – “The driving scenes are astonishing – as electrifyingly, wind-whippingly real as anything in the genre’s history, from Le Mans to Ford v Ferrari.” Original Score: 4/5
Peter Bradshaw (Guardian) – “The film itself does not find a way to absorb the pointless culpable horror of it all, relapsing into a stolid, almost joyless determination… But no one could doubt the style with which Mann stages those race scenes, with their danger and horror.” Original Score: 3/5
Bilge Ebiri (New York Magazine/Vulture) – “In the hands of a less confident actor, this could have been a disaster, theatrical and awkward and unreal. But Driver makes Ferrari something indelible, a force not so much of nature as steel, asphalt, and death.”
Nicholas Barber (BBC.com) – “The racing sequences have enough energy and jeopardy to raise the pulse rate, but the rest of Ferrari… well, surely a film about high-speed cars shouldn’t pootle along as slowly as this one does.” Original Score: 3/5
David Rooney (Hollywood Reporter) – “Ferrari is unlikely to go down as canonical Mann, lacking the glimmering, hard-edged stylishness of his best work. But admirers of the director’s high-intensity, muscular filmmaking will not go unrewarded.”
Owen Gleiberman (Variety) – “Ferrari really is like a ’70s movie. It has that intensity of grip, that layered human fascination, that cathartic honesty about what life is really about.”
Ryan Lattanzio (indieWire) – “Driver’s performance is a fine one, flanked ever by emotional guardrails even in stressed-out moments… But Cruz hijacks the wheel from her co-star in a grief-dazed but always alert and forceful turn.” Original Score: B
Ferrari will release in theatres near you on Christmas 2023.
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