Race for Glory would've been amazing but I was truly disappointed at the final result. How could anyone take such an amazing story like the Lancia vs Audi rivalry and just gloss over the important bits like they were in a rush?
If you don't believe me when I say the story was glossed over, just see the first few minutes of the movie. It literally starts with a worded message of how Audi dominated the 1982 WRC season with its all-wheel drive Sport quattro. That's it. There was no build up for the main protagonist the movie sides with: Lancia. No mentions of Lancia's dominance from the 1970s before Audi. That's just lazy. If we were to side with Lancia in this film, you can't just not include their reputation from before like it doesn't have anything to do with the movie. It certainly does.
Also, I really hated how the movie treats Audi. There was a lack of screen time for Audi or even Daniel Bruhl's (Roland Gumpert) character. The only times when Bruhl was on screen was when Riccardo Scamarcio (Cesare Fiorio) was there to rial up tension between the two. That's the only rivalry we get. There's certainly way better ways to capture rivalries like this; for instance, Rush. What Rush did with the Hunt vs Lauda rivalry was amazing. They actually filmed both sides of the story, not just stick with one character and roll with it.
Lastly, pacing. You go from one race and then the next, you're back to interpersonal drama. For a racing movie like this, it's an insult. Again, another thing Rush did well was allocate a good bit of time to show the racing action. This movie with its hour and 40 minute run time seems to hurry the exciting bits of rallying so that we get more drama between Fiorio and his team.
Suffice to say, Race for Glory's adaptation of the actual story was lackluster. If I wanted to know what happened, I would've watched a documentary or even Jeremy Clarkson explain it in less time. And even if you weren't a fan of rallying, the film just doesn't cut it to give the audience the thrill of what made WRC legendary as it was back then. Yeah, some of the scenes of racing seemed alright, but it just wasn't enough to keep me glued to my seat.
