On February 1, the Italian-British film “Path to Glory: Lancia vs. Audi” began rolling out, the plot of which is based on real events and tells about the fundamental confrontation between the Lancia and Audi teams at the 1983 World Rally Championship. In the review below we tell you why the local story is not captivating and is not even close to the level of a similar plot in Ford v Ferrari.
Pros:
an attempt to tell a compelling story based on true events; no, no, but sometimes some minor interesting revival occurs
Minuses:
lack of a story focused on a fierce and exciting confrontation; racing looks bad; the lack of adequately written characters, which is why the actors have nowhere to express themselves; in general, the implementation of the plan is lame in all respects
“Path to Glory: Lancia vs. Audi” / Race for Glory. Audi vs Lancia
Genre biographical sports drama, film about auto racing
Directed by Stefano Mordini
Starring: Daniel Brühl, Riccardo Scamarcio, Volker Bruch, Hailey Bennett, Katie Clarkson-Hill
Premiere cinemas
Year of manufacture 2024
IMDb website
1983 World Rally Championship. Italian Lancia team manager Cesare Fiorio aims to win the tournament at any cost, including the overall manufacturers’ championship. The team has not won the prestigious title since 1976, so now ending the losing streak is a matter of honor.
But bringing your ambitious plan to life will be extremely difficult, almost impossible, because the invincible Germans from Audi, led by engineer Roland Gumpert, are the undisputed favorites, who do not intend to lose their leadership positions. Taking this into account, fundamental rivalry emerges at the championship, and, as we know, it always adorns any sporting event.
If we take a look at the cinematic mainstream trends of recent years, through simple observation we can conclude that at least two types of biopics are now clearly in trend. Firstly, these are musical biopics, which filmmakers began to pay more attention to after the triumph of Bryan Singer’s Bohemian Rhapsody. A little later, films about Elton John, Elvis Presley and Whitney Houston will appear, and the life story of Bob Marley is coming to us at the box office.
Secondly, these are, of course, car/racing films based on real events and telling about prominent historical figures. Just recently, Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” was shown in cinemas; “Lamborghini” was released in 2022, although it turned out to be unnoticed and unsuccessful, and even earlier the public admired James Mangold’s “Ford v Ferrari”, which we called “The Outsiders”. It is the latter that the sports drama “Path to Glory: Lancia vs. Audi” is based on, as its title clearly hints at.
Unfortunately, the film, an Italian-British production, is very far from its Hollywood predecessor: the scale here is clearly not the same, the intensity of passions, by and large, does not happen, and this is not to mention the absolute lack of sporting, competitive excitement that such projects should have built into them in DNA.
Formally, the creators encourage you to take the side of outsiders, make some uncertain movements so that the viewer is imbued with the philosophy of Cesare Fiorio, but this is not enough.
Primarily due to the fact that, apart from the actual character of Riccardo Scamarcio, there is no one to root for in Lancia. The somewhat strange Walter Röhrl played by Volker Bruch, more inclined towards beekeeping than racing, does not fit into the role of one of the best professionals, much less a leader on the track. And his young colleague is barely memorable, even despite being involved in the film’s most dramatic moment.
There is no declared antagonism in the plot either, because, again, somehow formally the too episodic Daniel Brühl acts as a principle rival. Despite the fact that he already has good experience in the genre thanks to Ron Howard’s “Race”, in “Lancia vs Audi” the star German is practically invisible.
In general, the dramatic failure is not due to the fault of the actors, but because of incompetently written characters, the majority of whom do not care about their fate. And also because of incorrectly placed accents.
Without an interesting confrontation in the title (in the original, for some reason, Audi is ahead, although this is completely wrong), the magic of fierce rivalry for which we watch films of this kind disappears. In fact, this devalues the whole idea.
The proposed races are also not admirable; from the technical side they are poorly executed and monotonous. The camera alternates between extreme close-ups of the racers and the road, but it has no effect. Sometimes it’s even difficult to figure out what kind of chaos is happening on the track, in the tournament, in the heads of the heroes (the moment Röhrl meets the village beekeeper right in the middle of the competition is too much).
Here everything playfully began as another story of the battle between David and Goliath, where victories are achieved through cunning. Then this mood abruptly fades away and we are faced with an endlessly boring red tape with uninteresting characters, in which anyone but the viewer wins. And we won’t see the joy from the splashes of champagne.
Conclusion:
“Path to Glory: Lancia vs. Audi” deserves the title “Outsiders” more than Ford v Ferrari, and clearly does not deserve the status of “bad movie,” since it does not evoke negative emotions. But that’s the trouble: as a result, the film does not evoke any feelings at all.
