The first racing car movie I watched (Rush), I was kind of disappointed, since although the trailer had looked good, all of the good parts had been included in the trailer…and the movie itself was pretty boring. So I was a bit hesitant about watching this movie, considering the last one I saw with a similar ‘based on a true racing car story’ tagline.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I actually found myself enjoying it. I don’t really know a lot about racing cars, so I can’t speak to how accurate this movie was to the reality. I did like the fact that there were moments of tension almost from the start of the movie, like when Jann is racing back from his dad’s business in order to take part in the qualifying race to be at the academy. I found myself on the edge of my seat during that scene.

It was also really good to see Jann come into conflict with his father through the movie. It was sad to see that he seemed to get very little support from his parents and his brother, though, even when it was made clear that he had the chance to compete to be a race car driver. It was obvious why his father wasn’t being supportive, but there were no conversations on the phone with his brother, or messages, at all. Considering they were shown to have a fairly good relationship at the start, I found that lack of content to be quite strange.

I really liked Jack’s character in this movie and I thought it was particularly effective that he planned to prove that those at the academy couldn’t make it. It was an interesting teaching style that I thought worked really well, as it meant he wasn’t coddling them at all and they had to work twice as hard to reach a point that they could actually compete in the race.

I also really liked the fact that, despite him being the best at the academy, Jann wasn’t as good when it came to being put in front of the camera. Even though that conflict didn’t play a big part in the movie, it was there enough to add some more tension to what was going on. I also really liked the relationship that formed between Jann and Jack, especially as it gave me the opportunity to learn more about Jack’s past and why he wasn’t a racing car driver anymore.

On the whole, I did enjoy this movie. It was entertaining to watch, even though it didn’t make me any more interested in watching racing cars. The movie is definitely worth watching if you’re on the fence about it.