Race to Glory - Audi vs Lancia

As petrolhead, racing driver and journalist I always like cars and racing stories. But we are in era when films are made just to be made, and this one is the same. If you wan't viewers, you have to add drama, if you want drama, you need to make story up. It is great year for rallying, movie actualy contains some facts, but it has bad timing, bad directing, bad characters, poor acting and skips important events. When at the end for dramatic purposes somehow include 1985 Corsica event with fake driver, movie has it. There are better told documentaries, like Clarkson's. Movie to forget, unfortunately.

I read the reviews before watching the film and therefore had zero expectations. We have all seen Jeremy Clarkson's story-telling masterclass on the Grand Tour. This is the film version and overall it was better than I was expecting. The cars are great and the story could have been told better I'm sure. Daniel Brühl was one of the draws for me as he had played Niki Lauda to perfection in "Rush" and I was left feeling his character could have been more intense and the rivalry with Cesare Fiorio could have been developed further. Some of the incidental music was age appropriate which was good. I felt Ron Howard (Director of Rush) could have done more with this story. Maybe he can do the Group B story up until Henri Toivonen crashed his Delta S4 in Corsica leading to the Group B ban and the subsequent development of Group A and the Lancia Delta Integrale which dominated and won 6 years in a row.

Just to say that there is a beautiful view of Turin during the film at minute 42 with a big skyscraper. The film is set in 1983, but the skyscraper was built 2011, by a project of Renzo Piano. It was so easy to avoid it in the view of the camera. So sad for this. Details matter.

Among the oldest Italian car manufacturers, Lancia was founded on 27 November 1906 in Turin. Turin has always had a vocation for cars.

FIAT also was born in Turin. For many years all the economy of the city revolves around the car sector.

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Equals total fiction. And yes, at the end of the film the filmmakers admit as much, but as someone who is intimately familiar with the events surrounding the creation and racing of the Legendary Lancia 037, this film does it a grave disservice.

There is neither enough tension in the film, enough bystanders (indeed, WRC events are packed to the brim with spectators coming from all over the world) or enough of the cars themselves but more importantly, there simply isn't enough detail about the courses.

The history of the '83 WRC is rather glossed over in favour of interpersonal drama which was carried off in a rather hamfisted way.

The director and writing team had so much nailbiting material to work with and their results were just....mediocre. Watch the documentaries on YouTube instead.

Not a well told story. Poorly written and poorly directed. If you don't know the story go and save yourself an hour and a half and watch Jeremy Clarkson's documentary on Youtube which is way more exciting than this movie which to be honest doesn't make much sense half the time.

Sometimes sports movies are overdramatic and corny especially made in Hollywood but this time I was actually was missing Hollywood and all the cheesines

At least the movie looks good and if you're a rally or a racing fan in general then you might want to check this one out just for them glorious Group B cars. But set your expectations low.