Gran Turismo: A surprisingly entertaining and emotional sports drama

Gran Turismo (M, 134mins) Directed by Neill Blomkamp ***½

Get past the initial overwhelming product placement, the hard sell on the eponymous gaming franchise’s credentials as a real-life motor-racing simulator and a story littered with sports movie clichés and this slick take on Jann Mardenborough’s transformation from Gran Turismo (GT) player to professional driver is actually hugely enjoyable.

Yes, it plays somewhat fast-and-loose with the truth – he was actually the third (not the first) winner of the global GT Academy competition and his father only spent one season of his journeyman, two-decade footballing career at Cardiff City – but South African director Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Chappie) does a terrific job of marrying immersive action, reflective of the story’s video game roots, with a story that sometimes packs a real emotional punch.

Jason Hall, one of three screenwriters whose combined credits include such crowd-pleasing favourites as American Sniper, King Richard and TV’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga, isn’t kidding when he says both Rocky and Top Gun heavily influenced the script’s development.

At its heart are two terrific performances by Stranger Things’ David Harbour and Midsommar’s Archie Madekwe. The latter plays Mardenborough, a Cardiff teen whose obsession with GT has his father Steve (Shazam!’s Djimon Hounsou) concerned.

Sure, he’s always encouraged his boys to do what they love – “but within the bounds of reality!” Then, when Jann “borrows” and damages his car while out on the town with his footballing sibling, Steve decides he has no choice but to put his foot down – demanding his youngest child come work with him on the railyards, until he comes up with proper plan for the future. However, when the opportunity of a lifetime unexpectedly arrives in the form of the GT Academy competition, Jann decides defiance is needed if he’s to have any chance of realising his dream.

Blomkamp’s movie is really the story of four men – father-and-son Mardenborough, as well as Orlando Bloom’s slightly oily Nissan marketing executive Danny Moore and Harbour’s grizzled driver-turned-engineer Jack Salter.

Moore is convinced that the competition will reinvigorate the desire to drive real cars among the GT-generation, while an initially sceptical Salter is won over, not by the prospect of teaching sim-specialists the real facts of track life, but rather being able to stick it to the “pretentious clown show” who were his previous, conceited employers.

Both are stock characters straight out of the sports movie playbook, but Harbour elevates Salter via a commitment to cynicism and a slow, begrudging acceptance of his new role that you can’t help but be charmed by.

As well as his clever use of point-of-view shots and “recreation” of the video game’s visual style, Blomkamp also deserves credit for some pitch-perfect – and subversive – soundtrack choices. While there’s the expected dose of ‘70s hard rock in the form of Black Sabbath, there also the repeated, unexpected use of “mood-setting” classics by Kenny G and Enya (as well as appearance by our own Benee).

Another music-themed shock comes in the casting, with Mrs Mardenborough, Lesley, played by none other than Ginger Spice herself – Geri Halliwell (whose husband just happens to be Christian Horner, the principal of Formula 1 racing team Red Bull).

It’s true the narrative twists and turns are pretty predictable (a potentially career-ending crash here, last lap drama there) and the action plays out on motor-racing’s usual suspects (Nürburgring? Check. Le Mans? Absolutely. Dubai? You betcha.), but the on-course action is thrillingly realised (the real-life Mardenborough himself acting as his own stunt double) and the goals of just trying to make the podium – or even just fourth – perhaps just helped endear Gran Turismo to me more than say Days of Thunder or Ford v Ferrari.

Gran Turismo begins screening in cinemas nationwide on August 10.