Writer and Director: Bobby Moresco
Car firm origin stories are a new subgenre of the sports biopic and following the success of Le Mans 66 (Ford vs Ferrari in the US) Bobby Moresco now tells the story of Ferruccio Lamborghini from returning to his family farm after military service to building tractors and eventually, the most beautiful car in the world according to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Favouring personal dramas over the race to make a fancy sports car, Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend doesn’t quite take home the top prize.
Determined not be a farmer, Ferruccio wants to build and repair tractors but struggles to find any financing. With a beloved wife and child to support, he instead borrows the funds from his dad and a firm is born. A decade later, following personal tragedy, Ferruccio decides he wants to build a great sports car, setting his team an impossible challenge ahead of a major autoshow.
While Le Mans 66 recognised the need to put as many excitingly filmed car races on screen as possible and through that to explore the personalities and conflicts between its chalk and cheese character, Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend instead takes a TV-movie approach, favouring Lamborghini’s personal story over the development of the machinery and watching it go head-to-head. It works much less well as a result and while there is some tension in the fluctuating fortunes of Ferruccio’s life – the tragedies, the betrayal of friends and the business risks taken – there is far less to hold onto with so few sports movie challenges – other than a late rivalry with Gabriel Byrne’s voiceless Ferrari. So, what is driving out hero?
It looks glossily beautiful however with art direction and Blasco Giurato’s cinematography creating a rich and colourfully saturated feel to the visuals, while the period details in the 1940s and 1950s is lush. With a change of cast between these eras it’s slightly harder to connect the two parts of the film, however, and so much of the detail happens off screen including the switch from tractor-maker to luxury car designer. How and why Lamborghini transitioned and grew this business is far harder to determine in this too personal focus on wifely neglect and adultery.
As Young Ferruccio, Romano Reggiani has more to do than his older counterpart with all that burning ambition for his work and his marriage. Later, Frank Grillo needs only to look smooth and remove his shades dramatically at core moments that doesn’t really build much connection between the two stories, even though we are reminded they are the same man. There are some underused star turns including Byrne and Miro Sorvino in the second part of the story.
For an exciting car-firm origin story, we see far too little of the cars themselves and Lamborghini loses traction as a result. There are only so many times you can watch the man argue with friends and family. Created by a clear lover of the cars and a desire to tell a more personal story of an iconic machine, but without more throttle, Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend stalls.
Signature Entertainment presents Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend on Digital Platforms 21st November.
