It is unusual for racing films to be calm but that is the case with “Race for Glory: Audi vs. Lancia.” Drawing loosely from the 1983 World Rally Championship competition between the two automakers, director Stefano Mordini made a movie that belongs in the “docudrama” genre while appearing to have been done on a tight budget, at least compared to Michael Mann’s epic “Ferrari,” which unfortunately got there first, or like “Rush” and a similarly titled film called “Ford v Ferrari.” It has good performances and interesting little touches, yet it never quite quite entices its audience to buy into whatever weird groove its creators seem to have found.
Cesare Fiorio (Riccardo Scamarcio) manages Team Lancia of Italy that receives support from Fiat, he is best known here as an Italian mob boss in John Wick: Chapter 2. Since such races have traditionally been used by many factories as perfect testing grounds before launching new car models, WRC still remains a very important event for them. However this only occurs when they are first. But Lancia was absent from two previous competitions while their rival Fiat had formidable competitor Audi under its wing headed by Roland Gumpert (Daniel Brühl), with more money and manpower plus better technology, thanks to cars featuring four-wheel-drive systems seen by experts as beneficial since they allow driving across terrains of various types encountered by WRC drivers. Unfortunately Team Lancia did not have adequate time finances or skill to catch up with German counterparts before these series of races begin so it will make do with what it already has.
In this film anyway, Fiorio himself is shown as Lancia’s greatest advantage. According to Scamarcio, who also helped produce and write the movie on his own account, Fiorio comes off as someone who would stop at nothing just so he can win all through his life. He is a kind of trickster that can come up with immediate solutions for what appear like insoluble problems such as roads which are half covered with snow (thus putting Lancia’s 2-wheel drive cars at a disadvantage) or the requirement that car makers had to have 200 prototypes for the WRC entry (Lancia has only 103 and the race is tomorrow). I will not say how Fiorio solved these difficulties, it wouldn’t be fair. Let it be known though that he is also one of those meticulous individuals who will read an entire rulebook to see what it leaves out or bans explicitly.
There is a failure of execution on the part of “Race for Glory” in terms of portraying the expected beats of a racing film, such as fashioning a quirky team of passionate but weird oddballs and unravel their psychologies. This is an easy win for genre storytelling; from sports films to heist movies, this low-hanging fruit remains unharvested.
Then there’s Fiorio showing up at Röhrl’s doorstep to see if retired driver Walter Röhrl (Volker Bruch) will join Team Lancia. He tells us what’s going on without telling us what’s happening exactly. In fact, Fiorio never directly asked him to come out of retirement and join his crew even though it was implied in their conversation. But then again, whether or not the quietly flamboyant Röhrl (played by someone resembling 1970s Robert Redford hotshot type) is worth all his eccentricities that drive everybody crazy like stopping mid-race to chat with a farmer cannot be determined. Also we aren’t told why he will do one rally instead of another as well as why he won’t participate in half the rallies.
Fiorio also hires Jane McCoy (Katie Clarkson-Hill), a nutritionist, who gets even less attention than before. Besides her father dying while driving in a race twenty years ago there’s really no clue about her character whatsoever. There isn’t any love story between Fiorio and Jane that adds nothing to it narratively except making certain things unnecessarily predictable but it need not be imposed either. After having too much to drink one night at a party, Fiorio goes home with Jane because she suggests he order grog from a barman – he then hires her right away upon realizing she had shared some profound knowledge with him on that particular occasion. We don’t know what made him think she was ideal just based on that encounter let alone how she could improve the team in ways that any other employee would not have been able to. It’s the same way with Röhrl racing strangely, all those close-ups of his eyes while he focuses on the road are great, but we never learn what sets him apart from other drivers. We also don’t know why he makes it hard for Team Lancia to determine how many people they need to send or how long a stage will take by behaving like a diva and wasting precious moments during races.
What keeps “Race for Glory” from being a waste is Scamarcio’s amazing performance as Fiorio which captures and holds the viewer’s attention until the credits roll; furthermore, the sparing use of actual documentary footage and TV news pieces mixed with reenactments instead of overusing them gives this film an added dimension. To its credit, this movie doesn’t depend too much on these clichés like numerous others about auto racing do or give certain aspects just a passing glance. Nevertheless, if one chooses to go down such a path then replace those familiar things with something just as compelling but more risky than before. The artiness could have been exaggerated even further or there might have been less pretension about it so that it stood out more. Instead, all it amounts to is an admirable effort at best.
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