Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia

I'm surprised of the negative reactions to this film... I guess some of you haven't seen "Lamborghini - The Man Behind the Legend"! (spoiler: don't)

As someone who remembers when this WRC season happened and followed it, I also had the advantage of being able to watch Race for Glory in the original Italian. The acting is so-so, some of the dialogue clichéd, but the racing scenes are in my opinion better than average.

One surprise was, despite a glaring misstep with the homologation officers counting Beta Montecarlos instead of Rally 037s and not even noticing, there was some attention to detail, such as Fiorio driving around in a period-correct high spec Lancia Gamma and the FIAT politics at the time. There's even a cameo many will not notice: in the fleeting scene where you see the "Avvocato" Gianni Agnelli face on, the uncredited actor is actually Agnelli's grandson Lapo Elkann.

The movie is not so much about racing as of the figure of Cesare Fiorio. Seen in this context, it's a pretty good movie that even my wife enjoyed. Just remember, it's not a documentary and doesn't intend to be.

First and foremost, this is a movie about Cesare Fiorio and how he spent 1983. It just happens to be the Rally Championship, but don't expect to see a lot of rally driving.

If you always wanted to see the driver's faces and blurry forests instead of their cars on a road, the cinematography is for you.

Old footage did get used in some places, but not even properly upscaled, sharpened or graded to fit the rest. Some racing movies show more actual car scenes in the credits than this one has as a whole.

On a positive note, it's less dramatized than the average American documentary. Although, some of their changes are out of character. When Rohrl didn't want to win a race, he didn't show up.

I read the reviews before watching the film and therefore had zero expectations. We have all seen Jeremy Clarkson's story-telling masterclass on the Grand Tour. This is the film version and overall it was better than I was expecting. The cars are great and the story could have been told better I'm sure. Daniel Brühl was one of the draws for me as he had played Niki Lauda to perfection in "Rush" and I was left feeling his character could have been more intense and the rivalry with Cesare Fiorio could have been developed further. Some of the incidental music was age appropriate which was good. I felt Ron Howard (Director of Rush) could have done more with this story. Maybe he can do the Group B story up until Henri Toivonen crashed his Delta S4 in Corsica leading to the Group B ban and the subsequent development of Group A and the Lancia Delta Integrale which dominated and won 6 years in a row.

Equals total fiction. And yes, at the end of the film the filmmakers admit as much, but as someone who is intimately familiar with the events surrounding the creation and racing of the Legendary Lancia 037, this film does it a grave disservice.

There is neither enough tension in the film, enough bystanders (indeed, WRC events are packed to the brim with spectators coming from all over the world) or enough of the cars themselves but more importantly, there simply isn't enough detail about the courses.

The history of the '83 WRC is rather glossed over in favour of interpersonal drama which was carried off in a rather hamfisted way.

The director and writing team had so much nailbiting material to work with and their results were just....mediocre. Watch the documentaries on YouTube instead.

Just to say that there is a beautiful view of Turin during the film at minute 42 with a big skyscraper. The film is set in 1983, but the skyscraper was built 2011, by a project of Renzo Piano. It was so easy to avoid it in the view of the camera. So sad for this. Details matter.

Among the oldest Italian car manufacturers, Lancia was founded on 27 November 1906 in Turin. Turin has always had a vocation for cars.

FIAT also was born in Turin. For many years all the economy of the city revolves around the car sector.

..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... ..... .....