Nevertheless, Blomkamp leaves no stone unturned in order to integrate the racing simulation into the film again and again. Sometimes – like the game – he fades in the ideal line on the race track that Yann sees in his head. Sometimes the car virtually disassembles into a thousand individual parts on the race track, and the camera zooms in on the components that will play an important role in the coming seconds. That’s honourable, but it doesn’t really help the film any further. That Yann through his years of training from Grand Touring As good as it was, the audience thinks so too.
More problematic than the brief forays into the game is the generic script by Jason Dean Hall and Zach Baylin, which, after all, works like King Richard and American Sniper wrote. Here, the two do not leave out any clichés to describe the racing circuit as a dazzling parallel world in which the young Yann has to endure the typical events known from sports dramas. Like a pit lane checklist, the writers seem to tick off one stereotypical scene after the other, what Grand Touring for all the dynamism that Blomkamp and his cinematographer Jacques Jouffret bring to the screen, makes it a very predictable affair. The conflict with the father, the dismissive coach, the envious competitors, a lack of support from your own manager – things that you see in every second film about a successful athlete or a team.
But perhaps their biggest buck is when they reschedule an accident Mardenborough suffered many years later, early in his career, to use as a pivotal moment for the film as a whole. Now, it’s not uncommon for biopics to dramatize content to make it more impactful, like Bohemian Rhapsody for example, making Queen songs years younger or older than they actually were. But such a strong distortion of facts like Grand Touring has not afforded a biopic for a long time.
The fact that the film still offers entertainment value is due to other factors. The young Archie Madekwe as an angry young man in the leading role is convincing from the first scene. Orlando Bloom plays the manager, who more than once has to decide between quick success and gut feeling, also with a lot of heart. But the star of the film is Stranger-Things-Star David Harbour, who not only has the most laughs on his side as grumpy ex-racing driver Jack Salter, but is also able to give his character the most depth. In Harbour’s view, Blomkamp tells stories that reach and touch the audience, even if the South African over-stages many moments, so that the last person notices which emotion is being conveyed. He doesn’t have to do that with Harbor – they’re oases of calm in a hectic film.
After all, Blomkamp designed the racing scenes very dynamically and grippingly, even if they were the industry leader Le Mans 66 James Mangold still needs a few horsepower. But with pleasing cuts, interesting camera perspectives and a decent amount of pathos in the tank, Blomkamp regularly unleashes adrenaline in the auditorium and shows inspiration Grand Touring his homage.
In the end, mixed feelings remain. Good actors allude valiantly to a screenplay steeped in clichés and stereotypes, which Blomkamp at least dresses up in dynamic images. Fans of car racing should therefore get their money’s worth much more than fans of original stories.
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