Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend

A plot summary for this film is pretty much unnecessary as the title of the film tells you what this film is about so let's look at what lies beneath...

The film opens up with Enzo Ferrari and Ferruccio Lamborghini (in the early 90's) racing each other....erm...on some road somewhere. This race occurs throughout the film and is interspersed at varying points throughout the story. Some may dismiss this as pointless and making no sense and to a certain extent I agree; however, it could also act as a metaphor showcasing their one upmanship, their jockeying for position and ultimately their rivalry. I'm not entirely sure I'm on the right track with that train of thought, but it's the only way I could make, at least, some sense of this film.

Anyways, looking at the main focus of the film Ferruccio returns from WW2 and decides with his friend to start a business building tractors; this proves reasonably successful for Ferruccio, but he's a risk taker and wants to be a big shot like Enzo Ferrari so makes the brave move of designing a car and ultimately muscling in on his rivals patch. Things are a tad dull in the first half, but I could see potential for an interesting story developing; the partnership between Ferruccio and Matteo, the conflict coming from Ferruccio's father and wife, but it really starts to fall apart in the second half....

As soon as we're getting comfortable with some of the supporting characters.... the film jumps forward at least 10 years to find Ferruccio in a completely different place and worse than that some of the characters from the first half of the film get completely dropped without explanation; what happened to Ferruccio's father? The old sage who had a wise head on his shoulders??? Matteo is peeved with Ferruccio for stealing his girl and says he wants 25% of Ferruccio's business, but then when the film jumps forward to 1963 he is never heard from again so what happened in the intervening years? This is the absolute laziest writing one can encounter. The film says at the end that the film has no affiliation with anyone involved in the film bla de bla and it really shows (strangely enough it seems to use this as a badge of honour!!!).

The thing that really stuck out for me was the fact that this was a film set in Italy based on Italian protagonists yet not one person speaks in Italian; throughout the whole film I genuinely don't think I heard one word of Italian. At one point everyone is celebrating new year and they're all singing Auld Lang Syne (in English). Having said that it's clearly an American film with an American audience in mind so I suppose this should not come as much of a surprise.

Looking at the acting, then it's no surprise that the American actors have the meatiest roles and are the biggest draws (Grillo and Byrne are both fine as actors and do well with what they have to work with) but as for being convincing as respective Italian car manufacturing rivals....give over!!!)

It's a shame really as the filmmakers did make some effort by seeking out some actors and actresses whom were born and bred Italians, but they decided to give them smaller roles and despatched a lot of them early showing a lack of bravery. I can imagine the conversations "But nobody would know such and such." "These unknowns won't appeal to our audiences." What a shame!! Still at least some of these lesser known Italian actors were given a reasonable chance to showcase what they can do and I really hope that I see, at least some of them on the big screen (in far juicier roles in the future).

To end with I think the thing that really grinds my gears (did you see what I did there :-( was that the film itself was something of a downer. I knew nothing about Lamborghini or Ferrari (the people rather than the cars) and to put it bluntly and very mildly they are a pair of very objectionable fellas which doesn't exactly make the film a particular pleasant viewing experience. Lamborghini gets a big thumbs down from me I'm afraid.

Instead of a comprehensive biopic, this film instead takes a look only into certain key chapters in the life of Ferruccio Lamborghini. For the average viewer this may be enough but for the car enthusiast it will leave them wanting more. Coming into this knowing very little about the man I feel I walked away with a better understanding of Lamborghini but only on a cursory level.

With an obviously limited budget they managed to stretch every penny to get a final product that is as polished as the cars. The acting was solid, the settings exact, the direction professional and the cars were beautiful. Sure they did not race the obviously very real and loaned classic vehicles into any danger but it did not detract much from the film which is more art than engineering.

There are a lot of garbage films out there but this is not one of them.

Not as bad as some make out to be. Certainly no masterpiece, but it is interesting. Really bad accents at times, but if that kind of detail doesn't distract you then any liberties with historical accuracy aren't likely to either.

The subject does whet ones appetite for a really good biopic, so perhaps someone will throw some money at it some day, cast more Italians, better sets.

For a low budget attempt at telling a story, it gets the job done, and it does have redeeming moments. If you're interested in the engineering, beyond the "you cannot fit 4 carbs i there!" or "pop-up headlights are too complicated", you'll be left wanting.

If you're happy enough to spend an hour and a half getting a very cursory look at the Lamborghini story, and can overlook some marginal acting, go for 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.

Frank Grillo is the highlight of this movie, can't fault him, great job with what he had to work with.

How do directors manage to make fast cars look like they are going slow. The race scenes between the Ferrari and Lamborghini are by far the worst filmed race scene I have seen. Who choreographed and directed that scene? Really? That's what you came up with? It's trash. Directors, take note. Go watch the opening scene to a movie called the Cannonball Run from 1981, yes that right, 1981. They made that Lamborghini look fast, sound fast, how a Lamborghini should be. To this day, that one scene is better than what you all came up with.

If your not a car enthusiast or don't care about Lamborghini this movie will bore you to death. I stayed with it because of my passion for Lamborghini and Ferrari, and the legendary story of how Lamborghini began.

It has its moments, good moments, but the badly written and horridly directed moments outweigh the good ones.