An Ode to ‘Ford v Ferrari’ and Dad Cinema

My dad isn’t exactly a pop culture savant. Every week he DVRs episodes of NCIS, and some long-running, tragicomic Italian detective show whose name I can’t remember so I’ve decided to call it “Gabagool Fargo.” He still jams to the Black Eyed Peas, which I’m sure he considers modern music (he wasn’t as keen on The E.N.D., but “I Gotta Feeling” remains a regular on his driving playlist). I’m also confident he couldn’t name more than three Marvel movies, although that’s a good thing. He refuses to subscribe to Netflix. All of this isn’t to dunk on my dad—the only way he’d be living a happier life right now is if Arsenal bit the bullet and fired Unai Emery—but to underscore just how blissfully unplugged he is from the general pop culture discourse. And that he still watched the trailer for Ford v Ferrari the day it came out.

If there was any movie released in 2019 that serves as a signal flare for fathers across the world, it’s this thing. Ford v Ferrari features many of the qualities—a historical basis, fast cars, male friendships, male rivalries, men not wanting to talk openly about their feelings, loud and adrenaline-fueled racing sequences—that are staples of what’s become one of my favorite genres: Dad Cinema. Ford v Ferrari is such a model example of this type of project that I expect test-screening attendees were composed of dads, as assembled by an exalted Committee of Dads, so that the movie could achieve its maximum dad-ness—which it did.

The film concerns the true story of automotive legend Carroll Shelby (played by Matt Damon), who’s enlisted by Henry Ford II to build a Ford racing car for the grueling 24 Hours of Le Mans and defeat Ferrari, perennial champions of the competition and cool kids of the car world because, well, they’re Ferrari. (Ford wanted to purchase Ferrari in the ’60s, but Enzo Ferrari pulled a Logan Roy and told the Americans to fuck off, instigating this absurd dick-swinging motorhead contest.) Ford astonishingly won the race in 1966, thanks in large part to the skills of prodigious British driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale), and the newly built Ford GT40 that would keep winning Le Mans through 1969.

As directed by James Mangold, Ford v Ferrari is as by the numbers as a biopic can get—the closest this film takes to a sharp left turn is on the race tracks. But that familiarity is a feature, not a bug. The movie might not get a ton of points for creativity, but by taking on all the endearing virtues of a quintessential Dad Blockbuster, it becomes a well-oiled machine and a fun, stand-alone ride that feels increasingly rare in the age of superheroes.

But what constitutes Dad Cinema? It’s hardly academic, but here’s my best shot at cataloguing it, having spent a good portion of my life willingly consuming all kinds of dad-worthy content. Dad Cinema typically (though not always!) fall into five categories: space, war/spycraft, Westerns, sports (car movies, like Ford v Ferrari, are a subcategory of the sports movie), and law enforcement/crime, all of which can overlap with being a biopic. Timeless examples include James Bond films (especially the Sean Connery era); Indiana Jones; The Godfather; Rocky; Die Hard; Goodfellas; The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Saving Private Ryan; Unforgiven; The Martian; Predator; Air Force One; The Fugitive; High Noon; Apollo 13; Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World; Space Cowboys; and Heat. Basically, if a film is Dad Cinema, there is a 100 percent chance it regularly airs on TNT. (All these movies are Rotten Tomatoes–certified “fresh” in my heart.)

There are also Dad Directors, such as Ron Howard, Clint Eastwood, and non-Transformers Michael Bay. Dad Entertainment can also translate to the small screen, from series like 24 to Jeremy Clarkson–era Top Gear to the first season of The Terror to Amazon Prime’s Jack Ryan (the Jack Ryan films are also, of course, Peak Dad Blockbuster). Finally, in the interest of expediency, I’ll just add that there is no greater Dad Musician than Bruce Springsteen.

While the well of Dad Cinema hasn’t completely dried up, worthy entries in the canon don’t come around as commonly as they used to—which makes something as prestigious and high-octane as Ford v Ferrari feel like Avengers: Endgame for Dads. (You’ll notice the only movie examples above from the 2010s were Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and The Martian, a true gift from the Dad Gods.) Instead, these days you’re more likely to find Dad Cinema in the world of streaming than you are on the big screen.

This year alone, Netflix is rolling out three films that fill their apparent Dad Blockbuster quotient. The first was Triple Frontier, in which five former Special Forces operatives plan to rob a drug lord in an epic marriage of two iconic film tropes: “getting the gang back together” and executing “one last job.” (Naturally, things go awry.) The second is The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s excellent, soulful, possible swan song to the gangster genre, which debuts on the streamer at the end of the month following a limited theatrical release. And in December comes 6 Underground, a Ryan Reynolds–led action movie in which Michael Bay goes back to his explosive roots (before Autobots and Decepticons did all of the exploding).

But while Dad Blockbusters haven’t gone totally extinct on the big screen—Ford v Ferrari notwithstanding, we were also blessed with Ad Astra earlier this year, the Neil Armstrong biopic First Man in 2018, and Dunkirk in 2017—they face a similar threat to other non-superhero films. Scorsese himself worries about the future of cinema: Major studios, in addition to superhero movies, keep shelling out sequels, remakes, and reboots in lieu of new ideas, because that’s what brings large swaths of people to multiplexes. There are ways around these constraints—Todd Phillips turned Joker into a gritty, R-rated character study, even though I wasn’t personally thrilled by the movie itself—but that’s no way to account for the dearth of big- and mid-budget adult dramas getting green-lit.

Unfortunately, things might only get worse for Dad Cinema. Netflix reportedly wasn’t happy with the lack of user interest in Triple Frontier, which is a genuine tragedy because any film that opens with Charlie Hunnam talking about strangling a dude in the cereal aisle of a Publix (my king actually said “That’s the price of being a warrior”) before cutting to Oscar Isaac sitting in a helicopter while Metallica’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls” plays is a goddamn masterpiece. Ford v Ferrari and Ad Astra, meanwhile, are some of the last products of 20th Century Fox’s movie slate before the studio was acquired by Disney—hardly a pioneer for original ideas nowadays. In the immediate future, at least, Disney may dump half of 20th Century Fox’s annual movie output straight to Disney+ or Hulu.

Dad Blockbusters are far from the only type of film suffering; nearly everything that isn’t a superhero flick is feeling a similar theatrical squeeze. But losing more Ford v Ferraris in the future means missing out on fun, sometimes silly, but no less essential cinema—something reassuringly middle-brow that can still offer considerate themes at an epic scale. The Dad Blockbuster can be flawed—hell, more than half the films I’ve mentioned are knowingly absurd—but they also have undeniable personality.

Interestingly, the central tension of Ford v Ferrari has some winking subtext about the process of filmmaking. The biggest obstacles Shelby and Miles face aren’t from Ferrari, but the corporate micromanaging and roundabout bureaucracy at the Ford Motor Company that threatens to destroy the brilliance of the men and their team—alluding to the sort of tension that emanates between business types and creatives. (I couldn’t help but think of Bob Iger effectively destroying the first run of Twin Peaks by telling David Lynch how he should run his own show, or more recently, the new owners of Deadspin who tried and failed to lay down a “stick to sports” edict.) It’s that sort of vicious cycle of bureaucratic nonsense that Shelby and Miles (just barely) break at Ford on the way to winning Le Mans, though not without their own personal sacrifices. It makes it low-key hilarious that Disney, of all companies, is distributing this movie.

These themes are timely, and they help distill the enduring appeal of Ford v Ferrari and other hallmarks of great Dad Cinema. And if these kinds of films are truly becoming a dying breed, we’ll be all the worse for it. For as long as there are people on this Earth, there will also be dads.