This waste of an hour completely missed the bullseye. Villeneuve was undoubtedly the most spectacular race car driver to have been born.
Australia has televised Formula 1 from the latter part of 1979 (excepting a one off Japanese GP in 1976) so I saw only half of his short F1 career. But my most vivid memories are of Gilles. Some of Gilles' great battles were with my countryman Alan (yawnsville) Jones who piloted a vastly superior chassis but who's engine was no match for the Ferrari's. The duel in Canada 79 was seat edge stuff. The pass Jones did on Gilles when braking for Mirabeau at Monaco in 1981 was possibly the best pass I've ever seen but not due to the Aussie. It was the Canadian who showed the greater skill; Villeneuve on the fastest racing line, Jones up the inside,twice, maybe three times squeezed ever closer to the inside armco. Neither cars touched. Fabulous stuff. Gilles & Rene at the French GP 1979! Zandvoort 1979!! Spain 1981!!!
Gilles in the wet can only be compared to, I believe, Ayrton Senna. re; practice at Watkins Glen circa 1979.
But his real skill, the attribute which made him my favourite, had me squealing with delight, laughing hard & holding on was the large amount of time he spent driving his Ferrari SIDEWAYS! Clearly he loved doing this. I also believe he drove in this manner to entertain the 100's of 1,000's of fans who used to flock to GP's & the 10's of millions of TV viewers who were lucky enough, privileged enough to witness the wonder that was he.
Nobody before has thrilled me so, never again will he be replaced.
As tragic as is his demise, this film is equally tragic. It fails utterly, completely, to capture any essence of the personality that was Gilles Villeneuve.
ps I would have scored this with a ZERO but IMDb does not have that facility.
