Based on the true story of Ford motors attempts to topple Ferrari’s motorsport dominance in an effort to make them more attractive to the boomer generation Le Mans ‘66 (Ford vs Ferrari in the U.S.) is an exciting and fun sports biopic.

Ford is portrayed as a bureaucratic behemoth who do everything by committee and thus water down all their efforts. Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and Ken Miles (Christian Bale) are the creative Mavericks who will knock them out of their stupor and create the car to beat Ferrari.

Everything plays beautifully in the tradition of sports biopics. Both Ferrari and Fords bureaucrats play as worthy villains. Remo Girone’s portrayal of Enzo Ferrari is funny, whilst Josh Lucas and Jon Bernthal play slimy and supportive respectively within the Ford team. But what makes the film so much fun are the two lead performances and the motor racing.

Damon plays the charismatic talker whilst Bale steals the film with his more difficult pure racer. Both are war veterans and obsessed with motor sport and their friendship is the centre to all the enjoyment. Bale has a little more to work with given he is the man behind the wheel and has a wife and son, whilst Damon’s characters demons are presented to us in the opening minutes and rarely returned to again.

But for all petrol heads out there this film features an awful lot of exciting driving action that even an unconverted layperson like me can enjoy.

All round great fun.