The car racing action in the film is top-notch, as you might expect from director James Mangold, who has demonstrated he’s a master of balancing character development with action in Logan and 3:10 to Yuma. The action serves the story and characters, and never feels overly manipulated to create a set-piece. The opening with Carroll Shelby both catching on fire and blacking out while driving Le Mans in 1959 is tense and riveting and serves to define his character economically in one thrilling sequence. Ken Miles’ character is similarly illustrated when he throws a wrench at Shelby in an argument over his personal skills. These are iconic scenes, and they allow you to instantly get a character in a way that pages of dialog can’t do.
Another thread of the film is that the racing team puts a ridiculously powered V8 engine into the GT40. It can set speed records on the straightaways, but there’s more to racing than that. The team struggles to control it as parts on the car, including the brakes, wear out or burn up as they are subject to such extreme conditions over 24 hours. This gets to the core of what a Le Mans race is all about, and it is also a metaphor for Ken Miles, who struggles to control his passions.
“The car racing action in the film is top-notch…”
There are a few liberties taken with the history — time is compressed, and some of the drama about whether or not Miles will get to race is manufactured. Still, the overarching beats of the story and the core of the characters mostly line up with what really happened. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will say that even though it seems too Hollywood to be true, it more or less really happened that way. The ending of the 1966 Le Mans remains controversial to this day, and the blame or kudos lie just about where they were put in the movie.
