As we wind down this very crazy summer of movies, where the two biggest hits were a gonzo, feminist manifesto starring an iconic toy doll and a time-twisting biopic about the guy who invented the atomic bomb (that is, when he wasn’t getting butt-bald-nekkid with Florence Pugh), I think it’s best we close things out with some good ol’ earnest, energetic entertainment.
Thankfully, Gran Turismo, which was originally scheduled to come out a couple weeks ago (the Barbenheimer blitz made Sony push it to the end of the month), is here to provide some high-speed melodrama during these dog days of summer.
Yes, it’s based on the racing simulation video game, but it’s mainly about Jann Mardenborough (played by Archie Madekwe), a Welsh teen who actually became a professional racer thanks to years of playing the game. He wins a spot in the GT Academy, a competition set up by a Nissan marketing executive (Orlando Bloom) who takes sim racers and gives them the chance to get on the track for real and probably turn pro. In the film, the whole thing is overseen by Jack Salter (David Harbour), a hard-on-the-balls, American engineer whose racing days are long behind him.
As we follow Mardenborough’s journey from ridiculed gamer to legit racer, Gran Turismo becomes another fact-based tale of a nobody proving to everyone — from stuck-up racing rivals to his own family — that he’s not a bum. Our protagonist mainly goes on this journey to show his disapproving, working-class, ex-footballer dad (Djimon Hounsou) that he didn’t spend his entire youth in his room figuratively and literally jerking off. (BTW, his mom is played by Geri Halliwell Horner — Ginger Spice herself!)
Once he’s at the academy, he puts up with prima donna contenders and Salter’s rigorous regimen of back-breaking training, racetrack-driving lessons and condescending taunts. Eventually, he perseveres and works his way through various global races, where he attempts to use his sim-racing skills and tries not to kill himself or others in the process.
This underdog story has been kicking around Tinseltown for a decade; Top Gun: Maverick’s Joseph Kosinski was even once attached to direct. Eventually District 9 director Neill Blomkamp took a break from doing dystopian sci-fi flicks and went into director-for-hire mode for this one. He took the script Alex Tse (Watchmen) wrote — later rewritten and polished by Jason Hall (American Spider) and Zach Baylin (King Richard) — and made the sort of high-octane, feel-good movie that’s perfect to watch with your dad.
The drama is enveloping both on and off the track. Along with cinematographer Jacques Jouffret and editors Colby Parker, Jr. and Austyn Daines, Blomkamp serves up adrenaline-pumping racing sequences that keep us enthralled, mostly because they feel authentic and not CGIed all to hell. (As Tom Cruise now proves every summer, people still like it when actors look like they are actually doing realistic, dangerous shit in movies.)
When he’s not speeding all over the gotdamn place, Madekwe plays his real-life character with just the right amount of charismatic humility. He’s such an eccentric, baby-faced go-getter (before every race, he gets in the zone by listening to Enya and Kenny G — two artists who are on Mardenborough’s actual playlist), you can’t help but be with him every step of the way. Even Harbour’s crabby cynic takes a shine to the kid, pushing him to become the best while Bloom’s publicity-minded exec — yeah, Katy Perry’s boo is more self-absorbed than studly in this — works to make the boy a sports sensation.
Basically, Gran Turismo is the type of crowd-pleasing, fact-based sports movie Disney used to make before the uber-studio shifted its attention to Marvel, Star Wars, and other IP it can’t stop milking for all it’s worth. Although its story of a regular kid who overcomes unbeatable odds to become a competitive star has been told oodles of times before, thanks to Blomkamp and company, Gran Turismo makes all the right turns.
Film Details
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