At first, I wasn’t interested in the Gran Turismo movie at all. Then, I saw David Harbour as Jack Salter and said, “You have my attention.” Then, I saw someone say that this was better than Ford v Ferrari (it is not), and I thought to myself, “Okay I now need to know what is going on with this movie.” It is very fun and an exciting time in the theaters, but it is a movie based on a true story that is connected to a popular racing video game. So they do with it what they could, and it really works to make it a fun time in the cinemas, despite its flaws.
Maybe you’re like me and your friends all got into F1 racing during the pandemic and left you in their dust as they sped into this new obsession. My knowledge of racing comes from watching the occasional race with my friends or from Ford V. Ferrari, so I was somewhat “informed” but an outsider when I went into Gran Turismo and left with a sense of excitement about racing and a new favorite racer to root for. Sorry, Max Verstappen. I love Jann Mardenborough now.
Gran Turismo follows, at least in terms of major events, the real-life story of Mardenborough (played incredibly by Archie Madekwe) as he uses his skills gained by playing the game of the same name to earn a place at the Gran Turismo Academy, where Nissan offers some of the game’s best players the chance to become real-life racecar drivers. The story itself only works because of Madekwe and Harbour’s performances as Jann and Jack, the latter of whom wasn’t really based on any one real person. Otherwise, the movie is just a simple racing movie that is predictable outside of its true story elements. But Madekwe and Harbour bring us performances that ground Gran Turismo, and that gives it the heart it needs to carry it over the finish line.
A perfect David Harbour
I am but a simple woman, and there are few things I love more than David Harbour in all his disheveled glory. He’s beautiful and I love him. Maybe it’s just Harbour’s energy or his uncanny ability to adopt a child and take care of them, but Gran Turismo gave me all of my favorite elements of a Harbour character in Jack Salter. A former driver himself, has been working for someone who only cares about winning and less about the art of driving, Nicholas Capa (Josha Stradowski). Capa is also made up for the film. Instead of listening to Salter’s advice, Capa has him working on fixing his cars.
So, when Orlando Bloom’s Danny Moore comes to him with the idea for the Gran Turismo Academy, Salter leaves to go and help make this out-there vision come to life. Salter is the kind of guy who uses his charm and wit to take on the impossible while never once believing Moore’s vision will work.
But it’s his dynamic with Jann (Madekwe) that makes this movie so exciting to watch, making it clear why his character was created. They have a back-and-forth banter that gives the harder-to-watch moments heart, and without their relationship, this movie would be comical at best. Luckily, Harbour helps to ground the stakes of it all and brings a tone to Gran Turismo that keeps audiences on the edge of their seats.
A man with a wild dream
I frankly don’t know whether Darren Cox—the Nissan executive who created the GT Academy in real life—was as animated as the film’s Danny Moore or Orlando Bloom is just certainly making a choice, but he does some odd things throughout Gran Turismo that only work because of that Harbour/Madekwe balance. Moore, as a man, has big visions but isn’t sure exactly how to carry them out. He comes up with the Academy and needs Salter to bring his vision to life and train these gamers to drive.
There are so many parts through the movie that made me think to myself, “This didn’t need to be Orlando Bloom”—not because he was bad but because it doesn’t seem like that important of a role in the grand scheme of things. It’s really a movie about Salter and Mardenborough’s relationship between trainer and driver. Moore is there just to give stakes to the situation and the occasional bad opinion that Salter typically ignores.
If anything, if it were just a movie about Moore trying to make this happen, I don’t think Gran Turismo would work. The reason it does boils down to not only Jack Salter but the brilliance of Jann Mardenborough (Madekwe).
A protagonist we care about
The movie starts with Moore pitching this idea, but at the heart of that half-baked plan is Madekwe’s performance. Jann is at home in Wales with his family. His mother (Geri Halliwell-Horner, who is married to a former F1 racer) wants to support her sons, but his father (Djimon Hounsou) is trying to keep Jann realistic. He doesn’t think that Jann’s love for a video game will take him anywhere, and it establishes his need to prove to everyone that he knows what he is doing.
Whether it’s telling Salter that his brakes are glazed and being right about it because of his video game training or just proving everyone in his hometown wrong, Jann works as a character because he believes in himself, enough so that when he does have a crisis of faith, those who doubted him at first are there to pick him back up and put him on the right path.
Madekwe carries this film and his relationship to Harbour’s Salter is why it is captivating. Without them, Gran Turismo would be fast cars and boys with their toys. Instead, it is a heartfelt piece about beliefs and fighting for yourself.
It isn’t without its faults …
When you look more closely at the real story of Jann, you quickly realize what they changed to make the movie more “inspiring.” The moment that is less than great (and frankly very unnerving once you know the truth) is the race in which Jann Mardenborough wrecks and his car flips over the barrier where spectators can watch the race. In this instance in both real life and the film, a bystander was killed in the wreck. It was obviously an accident, the issue lies in how the movie portrays it in Mardenborough’s timeline.
The race where Mardenborough wrecked was at Nurburgring in 2015. He placed on the podium at Le Mans in 2013. Why does this matter? The film makes it seem as if his wreck caused other teams and those in the sport to push back against the “gamers,” and it spurred on Danny to make a team of gamers to race at Le Mans. So the bystander’s death in the film is used as a way to encourage Jann to get back in the race, which is very much not what happened.
While watching the film, you don’t really recognize the issues with it if you don’t know the real story. After learning about the switch, it doesn’t sit right with me that they used someone’s real-life untimely death to motivate a character. The movie itself is good and an interesting time at the theater, but it is important to note that this isn’t necessarily the true story, and people who were actually involved could get hurt by how the movie is depicting this, especially with the Nurburgring race.
(featured image: Gordon Timpen/Sony Pictures)
