Summary
Taking inspiration from the popular video game series and real life events, here’s a racing film that still brings the thrills while navigating some familiar tracks.
Video game films have been, to put it mildly, a hit or miss affair. So, there’s a worrying moment at the start of Neill Blomkamp’s GRAN TURISMO, partly based on the video game series of the same name, when Orlando Bloom’s marketing executive gives us a TED Talk on how great the titular product is. For a second it feels like pop has devoured itself whole and regurgitated out the by-products.
Then something strange happens: it grabs our attention and manages to hold us there for well over two hours. Jason Hall and Zach Baylin’s screenplay isn’t just based on the game, but the true story of gamer turned professional racing champion Jann Mardenborough (played here by Archie Madekwe).
Blomkamp’s film plays fast and loose with the facts, but that partly because the most unbelievable element – that Nissan and PlayStation took gamers, ran them through the GT Academy, and offered them a chance to race professionally – actually happened between 2008 and 2016.
The film version has all the elements that you might expect from an underdog sports movie. Jack Salter (David Harbour), Jann’s trainer, takes a chance on the young driver due to his own past regrets. There’s Jann’s father Steve (Djimon Hounsou), a former football champion who doesn’t understand his son’s passions. Literal golden boy Nicholas Capa (Josha Stradowski) serves as Jann’s chief rival.
Yet for a film that sometimes feels as rapidly assembled as a lightning fast pitstop visit, it’s remarkably compelling and slickly shot. Blomkamp takes his time getting us to the major races, allowing us plenty of time to get to know and enjoy this young Rocky Balboa’s company. The romantic interest (Maeve Courtier-Lilley) may be a perfunctory inclusion, but only because the father/son dynamics between Jann and Jack – not to mention Jann and his actual father Steve – have so much more emotional impact.
The races are also shot with real punch, taking us all over the world with the ease of selecting a map on a screen. You can feel the danger every time one of them steps onto a track, and there’s a rare use of speed that doesn’t rely on slowing everything else down. There’s a major turning point during the second act that’s a genuine heartstopper too.
This is arguably only hampered by the aesthetic debt to the original games. Jann frequently sees dotted lines on the track signifying his trajectory. At other times, there will be a little HUD or a number on screen showing the driver’s overall position. It’s a minor quibble, but it often momentarily takes us out of the film’s reality at crucial times.
The film version of GRAN TURISMO may bend the truth, ignoring drivers like Lucas Ordoñez who managed to unlock some of the depicted achievements a few years earlier, but it remains a solid racing drama. It does the rare thing of transcending the source game, even if it ultimately stays quite literally on a well driven track.
2023 | USA | DIRECTOR: Neill Blomkamp | WRITERS: Jason Hall, Zach Baylin, Alex Tse | CAST: Archie Madekwe, David Harbour, Orlando Bloom, Darren Barnet, Geri Halliwell Horner, Djimon Hounsou | DISTRIBUTOR: Sony Pictures Releasing | RUNNING TIME: 134 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 10 August 2023 (AUS), 25 August 2023 (US)
