Shelby American

Such a great story. Terrific archival photos and footage. But mother of god, the constant music is enough to make you stop watching. Didn't they trust the story?

I learned a lot,entertained the whole time, ended wanting more. The back ground music did not stand out too me. Watched with earbuds.

(Flash Review)

This documentary attempted to encapsulate the professional career of Carroll Shelby; the automotive racing icon. Splicing together some genuine racing footage, some talking heads and pictures, the film covered a lot of information. The trouble for me is the pacing jumped around abruptly and unevenly and never gave me an inspirational feel for his career and life. It was also formulaic and didn't take any creative approaches. Informative, yes; entertaining, not so much.

A must-see for everybody who's interested in racing history. It seems like everybody who survived those years is in it, even Ken Miles' son. Fantastic archival material (great footage, superb stills, vintage interview bits) make for a great documentary about Shelby / Cobra / the GT 40 etc. It would have been a total winner if the filmmakers would have trusted their own skills and the content more - most of the running time the film is spoiled by a terrible, noisy, never ending musical sound carpet. TV guys do this all the time, fearing that the audience suffering from attention deficit disorder might switch the channel if there's a second or two without noise. Which is very unfortunate - I had to stop the film every 20-30 mintes, I got headaches from trying to follow the narration / interviews (no pauses there as well unfortunately, no "mood scenes") buried under 2 hrs of music. A good documentary needs to live and breath as any feature film. But the film is a great treasure regarding all the ingredients and effort behind it !!

OK. So it's not great documentary making. No soul, flat presentation and leaves you asking questions all the way through.

But the subject matter is greatly interesting and it give it 10 for the content, 6 for the making and so even it out at 8.

I was entertained all the way - no skipping.