Gran Turismo: a film filled to the brim with boring clichés

Luca Fontana

9.8.2023

Translation: Patrik Stainbrook

For the most part, Neill Blomkamp’s Gran Turismo speeds from race to race at a breakneck pace. And thank goodness for that. Because if you actually take the time to think about the film, you’ll find it crashes headfirst into an exhaustive pile of clichés.

Let me start off by saying that my review contains no spoilers. Any information stated here is featured in trailers that have already been released.

Despite being based on the «unbelievable» and «true» story of racing driver Jann Mardenborough, the film’s plot is neither particularly incredible nor too fussed with the truth. Instead, it goes exactly as you’d expect after watching the trailer: a gamer becomes a racing pro. He encounters a few hurdles, of course. But the champagne still flows in the end. It almost has to. It’s a racing movie after all.

But before that, we’re served game and racing clichés galore. Scene after scene. Not a single thing in this film is surprising. There are only two things saving it from disaster: the skill of director Neill Blomkamp (District 9) and an excellent David Harbour (Stranger Things), who easily carries Gran Turismo on his back.

What Gran Turismo is all about

19-year-old Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe) only wants one thing: to play Gran Turismo all day, all night. Rapid race cars are his passion. Yes, his whole purpose in life. After all, thanks to the game, he knows every professional race track, every turn, every braking point and even every bump as if he’d driven them himself. Thank goodness for simulations. If he’d been born into a richer family, he’d be racing for real by now. Naturally.

Lo and behold, the day comes when his dream could become reality. After winning the Gran Turismo online tournament, he’s invited to the first-ever Nissan PlayStation GT Academy. But this isn’t just any academy. Against the best gamers on the continent, he competes for a coveted place on Nissan’s racing team, a sure path towards a professional racing career.

Of course, Jann has to scratch and claw for everything. The competition is tough and sometimes even fights dirty. Academy founder and marketing guru Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) would prefer to crown his much more media-savvy protégé (Pepe Barroso) the winner right away. And racing team manager Jack Salter (David Harbour) doesn’t think much of letting untrained gamers get behind the wheel of a real racing car anyway. But Jann doesn’t let this get him down. He holds on to his dream. And in no time he’s actually participating in the most prestigious races the world over.

Gran Turismo, the adaptation for film… or is it!?

Game adaptations are rarely among Hollywood’s best productions. Remember Tomb Raider? Assassin’s Creed? What about Prince of Persia? Still, despite their measly reputations, adaptations often aren’t bad at all. They’re just not good either. Pure middle-of-the-road trivialities that you can see or skip. Unless you’re a fan of the games. This is exactly what Hollywood is aiming for. The marketing no longer needs to explain the film to attract its audience. It’s enough to simply announce a movie exists.

Gran Turismo, on the other hand… Gran Turismo isn’t a game adaptation, but a dramatisation of Jann Mardenborough’s admittedly extraordinary journey from competitive gamer to professional race car driver. This changes my expectations, especially since a talented director like Neill Blomkamp is pulling the strings.

There’s nothing to be said against the at least attempted character study of a rookie who has to find his way in the merciless crucible of ruthless motorsports – despite the focus on drama and racing action. It’s not as if James Mangold’s Ford v Ferrari didn’t set a great example. In that one, Ken Miles (Christian Bale), one of the best racers of his time and a choleric roughneck loner, has to learn that a racing team doesn’t consist of just one driver.

Regrettably, it was a mistake to raise my expectations after the decent-looking trailer. If only I had stuck to my usual restraint.

Gran Turismo? More like Bland Turismo

Gran Turismo is stuffed to the brim with clichés. On and off the course. Commence the eye-rolling. Sometimes to a point where it feels like they’re doing somersaults. «I know this track. I’ve raced it a thousand times» a desperate Mardenborough shouts into the team radio, for example. «This is not a video game. This is reality!» the thoroughly peeved racing boss Salter shouts back. Drama. «Just trust me!» Mardenborough finally replies, through gritted teeth. Then he suddenly finds a completely new racing line that no driver before him has ever noticed – and blows everyone away with it.

Naturally.

Often it’s just little things. But across the film’s 126-minute runtime, they pile up so much that I find it harder to ignore said clichés with each scene. In the warm-up lap, drivers get briefings on their competition, advice on track peculiarities, and survival tips for their new car, which itself has just been flown in fresh by plane. Apparently training doesn’t exist in this universe. Or qualifiers. Nope. Everything happens just before the starting gun. In this respect, the film is modelled on the game, as there are no qualifiers in Gran Turismo’s career mode either. But real life is different.

And, of course, almost every race ends with a photo finish. I mean, what else do you expect? Verstappen-esque leads over the runner-up would be boring after all. I get it. But does every race in this film really have to end so artificially close?

Unless, of course, Mardenborough is unfairly pushed off the track. «See, the kid doesn’t have what it takes to be a real race car driver,» Orlando Bloom’s character explains. All I can think: «What are the rules!?» Mardenborough seems similarly appalled. «You could’ve killed me!» he yells at his competitor. With a smug grin, he counters with «It’s called racing, kid.» Um, no? Such manoeuvres would be punished with a direct disqualification for the aggressor by any halfway competent organiser. What does this have to do with racing?

Believe me, I’m only scratching the surface. An Academy participant vomits on the race track. Naturally, all gamers are out of shape after all. Then the only contestant with dyed hair advances to the Academy finals. All female gamers have coloured hair, of course. After an accident, boss Salter asks his racing trainees if they get extra points in the game for something like that. Wacky gamer jokes. Ha. The whole thing is rounded off by oodles of product placement for Sony, Nissan and Moet & Chandon. And if I didn’t know that Kazunori Yamauchi was «only» the vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment and creator of the Gran Turismo franchise, I’d think he was God after watching the movie.

… still, it’s not all bad

Sound like a train wreck? Maybe. Still, Gran Turismo isn’t as horrible as I’m making it out. Especially not if you’re unaware of Mardenborough’s story. True, screenwriters Jason Hall, Zach Baylin and Erich Hoeber check off the key points of his career. But the order in which they happen is often so convoluted that even Netflix’s Drive to Survive seems like a meticulously accurate Wikipedia entry in comparison. Sometimes even crucial information is deliberately omitted in order to artificially inflate the importance of second-class races. The fact that the faster LMP1 class is on track at Le Mans at around the same time is completely omitted from the film. My colleague Simon Balissat wrote an article about it:

But when it gets down to the nitty-gritty – and I leave out the aforementioned clichés – Gran Turismo is really good. The racing action is gripping. The sense of danger palpable. I’m rarely ever bored. «Do you really think you’re going to take a kid who plays video games in their bedroom, and you’re going to strap them to a two hundred mile an hour rocket? It’ll tear them to pieces,» Salter warns Moore at one point, before agreeing to participate in the GT Academy programme after all. How right Salter is in this comes up later. That part even happened in real life.

Yep, it’s clearly David Harbour as Salter that kind of holds the movie together. Not that his character, Jack Salter, actually existed. He was written as Mardenborough’s drill instructor and mentor for the film. But Harbour plays the fictional, embittered ex-racing driver authentically and with a lot of heart. And he gives the best motivational speeches. He even fires off the best quips. The entire film stands on his strong shoulders. Not Archie Madekwe’s portrayal of Jann Mardenborough.

At the same time, director Neill Blomkamp noticeably relies on Mauro Calo, test driver, car reviewer, stunt driver and owner of the fastest movie camera car in Europe. What’s more, Jann Mardenborough, the real Jann Mardenborough, also participated in the film as a stunt driver. You can tell. Because when a pack of Nissan GT-Rs dramatically lurches around the corners at 150 km/h – we, the viewers, are right up close – even I, a stony film critic, get all tingly in my cinema seat. In addition, there are exciting, novel camera perspectives that Blomkamp captured with a drone camera. No question: Gran Turismo itself doesn’t bow to Ron Howard’s super-authentic Rush in terms of effort.

And that’s high praise.

Verdict: could’ve been so much more

For a movie that obtrusively often cites Gran Turismo not as a game, but as a hyper-realistic racing sim, it’s pretty unrealistic. It all comes down to an overreliance on every conceivable cliché. From the exaggerated competition on and off the track, to the implied love story in the middle, to the brilliant finale. The father who pretentiously snubbed his son’s dreams the whole time finally approves – cue proud dad tears, of course.

Nothing about the film is new or even surprising. Not even the incredible but true story, which has been twisted beyond recognition every which way to better fit a classic Hollywood three-act play. Even the rivalries between the drivers, heavily played up at the beginning, hardly have any effect. More could’ve been done there. More depth to be had. But – and this should be stressed here – when it comes to the action on the track, Gran Turismo is actually good. Damn good, even. And if there’s one character I could connect with emotionally, it’s David Harbour’s Jack Salter, who easily carries me through the film.

What irony that he, of all characters, is fictional.

Gran Turismo will be in cinemas from 10 August 2023. Runtime: 126 minutes. Age rating: 12.

Luca Fontana

Senior Editor

Luca.Fontana@digitecgalaxus.ch

I'm an outdoorsy guy and enjoy sports that push me to the limit – now that’s what I call comfort zone! But I'm also about curling up in an armchair with books about ugly intrigue and sinister kingkillers. Being an avid cinema-goer, I’ve been known to rave about film scores for hours on end. I’ve always wanted to say: «I am Groot.» more

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