Parents' Guide to Ford v Ferrari

This enjoyable fact-based racing movie runs a little long, but it manages to keep up a good, breezy pace, focusing more on pure entertainment than on trying to be dutifully "important." At the heart of Ford v Ferrari are two fine performances by Damon and Bale, whose characters forge a touching friendship that's based more on small gestures than on big demonstrations. Miles is a show-off, but Bale makes him seem real, with relatable worries and outrages. And Damon clearly enjoys his clever, quick-witted character, who still somehow makes genuine connections. Just as good is playwright Letts as the stern, rocky second Henry Ford; he's reduced to terrified screaming and joyful tears when Shelby takes him for a high-speed ride in his new car.

At the wheel, director James Mangold gives Ford v Ferrari the crisp, confident energy of his best genre films, Logan and 3:10 to Yuma (the latter of which also starred Bale), without letting it drift into the stodgy, awards-bait seriousness of his previous biopic Walk the Line. Ford v Ferrari is so simple and classic that it could have been sent here directly from the early 1960s. Perhaps its most niggling flaw is Lucas' slimy, one-dimensional villain character, who acts out of pure selfishness. But the racing sequences are impeccably timed, with thundering, thrilling sound design that could convert newbies into hard-core racing fans. Still, the movie's best achievement is the sly way it depicts the central friendship, largely unspoken but still surprisingly tender.