Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend

If you love cars and movies that embody that, you may find this one sorely lacking in that department...As a fan of almost anything Frank Grillo appears in, I was all for seeing him in this role, however, he seems miscast and I felt at times I was still seeing characters from some of his other roles, leak thru...In other words, he did seem thoroughly embedded in his role and thus did not, at least for me, come across convincingly......then the is the car action or should I say, the utter lack of it.. Aside from the opening scene of the Lambo vs Ferrari, which is played over and over again during the movie, there is almost no other car driving or action scenes worth mentioning in this movie...Compared to Ford vs Ferrari, its not even remotely in the same league as far as acting or Content and thats being kind...This movie focuses on the life and loves and melodrama of the man's choices and the consequences of them... in that sense, if Thats what you want to see, its worth a watch but if you are expecting the cars to play an equal portion of the screen time, you will be sorely disappointed... It does give a glimpse, into the mans life and its a sad tale, a man who had so much, yet had noone really in his life to share it with... However accurate that is , who really knows?

After really wanting to see this movie, I must say that it could not have been worse. The actors playing Ferrari and Lamborghini don't resemble the real people in the slightest. In the 1948 road race scene, what are Mercedes 190 SL roadsters doing there, given they came out seven years later? Why is Ferrari drag racing against a Countach in a Mondial? Ferruccio didn't design the Miura, Marcello Gandini did. And I could on and on.

But the worst part is that the movie entirely misses the point: with the Miura, Lamborghini invented the mid-engined supercar and completely re-wrote the rules of the game. Ferrari's cars were made obsolete overnight.

The real story should have been how Feruccio with his engineers Bizzarini, Gandini, Dallara, Stanzani and Wallace pulled that off and made history.

Here's the problem: "Ford vs. Ferrari" was damn good, and set a high bar for a story about the development of these cars - and the clashes of competitive personalities - in the 60s. So when "Lamborghini..." fails to develop any of the characters at all and draw the viewer in to engage with and pick sides in the rivalries, we're left watching a handful of cartoon characters in which we simply aren't invested. While I've never seen any footage of Lamborghini (and thus can't comment on the accuracy of the performance here), Grillo played him like a soap-opera central-casting Italian. And aside from the pure animus between Ferrari and Lamborghini, engineering a new thing is actually very exciting - it's difficult and arduous and maddening and exhausting and incredibly rewarding. But did we get any of that? Not really, only a few clips here and there of a motor and a couple of body panels and almost nonexistent characters who - in real life - would have sweated bullets in doing what they did. The whole thing comes off as a pastiche, and just makes me want to read the book upon which it was allegedly based to find its heart and soul. And we didn't even get enough great car porn to boot.

If you're hoping for a film here to compete with Ford vs Ferrari, you will be sadly disappointed.

Although I had no prior knowledge of the man behind the legend, it almost seems to just be the story of a poor soldier mechanic coming home from the war and wants to make smaller and cheaper tractors, and risks the family farm to succeed. Then has clutch problems when he becomes rich, confronts Enzo Ferrari about improving them, gets told to get lost and so decides to become the competition. However there's no outcome of the success of the cars vs Ferrari. It focuses more on him losing his first wife, not being a great father, and changing from a common working man to a rich snob with little to no heart.

If that's the kinda story you're looking for, then this movie might be for you, but what most of us wanted to seexwas the history of Lamborghini till the end of his life. Not inserts of his imagination struggling to drag race Enzo Ferrari and then driving off lonely from his mansion before a messege states a historical fact and fades to black.

It sets up a few characters along the way that I'd liked to have known what happened to them? Such as Matteo, and probably the most disappointing is not showing how such models of the Countach came to be, from the concept to the design and how it was not designed as anything more than for looks etc.

It really began like it was going to be getting to the flesh and bones of the story, but almost seemed like it just ran out of gas and so they quickly wrapped it up and just quickly skipped over pages in the last few chapters.

Hopefully one day this story will get a better telling, perhaps a series to tell it right? But for now, don't bother with this one. Go over Lamborghini's Wikipedia page instead and save yourself from this story that's not the way it should be told with one of those abrupt endings that make you say, "is that it??"

The story of Lamborghini is the the stuff of legend. Marque.

A sound script albeit more fantasy than truth.

Good acting from Grillo et al.

But this is no different from your average auto epic, like every film before it, it is let down by details.

The producers were either lazy or ignorant.

Why is Mr Lamborghini driving a US spec Countach at the start ?

Mr Ferrari in a lowly Mondial ?

Why on earth are there so many shots of an old Ferrari motor when real Lambo motors are not rare.

And why were real car sounds not used ?

Instead we have some generic motor revving dubbing in.

This could have been a great motor bio pic instead we get something extremely average.

Casual viewers may be fooled but those who know cars will groan with disappointment.