‘Race For Glory: Audi vs. Lancia’ stars as phenomenal sports thriller 

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

“Race For Glory: Audi vs. Lancia,” simultaneously released in theaters and video on demand on Jan. 5, highlights the struggle between Germany and Italy in the 1983 Rally World Championship for racecars. Audi for Germany and Lancia for Italy were both powerhouse car manufacturers at the time. 

The film follows the team manager for Lancia, Cesare Fiorio (Riccardo Scamarcio), as he recounts the daunting task of competing with Audi’s four-wheel drive car. Lancia has a significantly smaller budget for research and development, which makes it practically impossible to create a four-wheel drive of their own, forcing Fiorio and Lancia’s engineers to adopt a much lighter but fragile, two-wheel drive model. 

Through Fiorio’s clever, though perhaps not perfectly legal resourcefulness, Lancia’s 037 car is approved for the 1983 Rally season. Although they are clear underdogs, the team and car are competitive. Fiorio also recruits Walter Röhrl (Volker Bruch), an accomplished but reluctant driver who stubbornly insists on choosing his races but is chosen regardless because Fiorio believes he is skilled enough to help narrow the gap between Lancia and Audi.

The season begins in Monte Carlo with further resourcefulness from Fiorio, including mind games with Audi’s team manager, Roland Gumpert (Daniel Brühl), who adopted the four-wheel drive. As the season progresses, Lancia receives top finishes but remains behind Audi. Röhrl’s continued pickiness in race selection frustrates Fiorio, leading him to replace Röhrl with Ugo Kurt (Giulio Brizzi), a younger driver with potential. 

The movie exhibits wonderful filmmaking throughout. The filmmakers almost flawlessly executed the visuals and cinematography, straddling the line between vivid immersion and elaborate, over-the-top displays. Some of the visuals, in the beginning, slowed the pace down too much through too many landscape shots, but it only adds to the immersion and intensity of the movie. 

The pacing was also done well for the most part; although the beginning was slightly slow, the plot worked out well as the pacing gradually increased, working to heighten the emotions during the movie’s climax.

The music fantastically ramped up the tension in more suspenseful scenes and established the dramatic mood exceedingly well throughout the film. A sizable portion of the movie is spoken in other languages, mostly Italian, French, and German, which adds to the immersion of certain scenes quite well. 

Perhaps the weaker aspect of the film was its plot, as it was a little nebulous and confusing. The average viewer would understand the film’s essence as a sports thriller but would likely lose sense of some of the smaller plot points, such as the presence of Dr. Jane McCoy (Katie Clarkson-Hill). McCoy is a nutritional doctor brought on by Fiorio to increase his team’s performance and had the most screen time in the movie yet never had a particularly clear role. At best, she helped flesh out Fiorio’s emotions to the viewer, but at worst, she was just a random character haphazardly connected to Fiorio with no real purpose. Her role ends up feeling a little unnecessary. 

A major character detail is the rather psychotic and admittedly obsessive nature of competitive racing and how Fiorio is consumed with winning. However, there is no given cause for this obsession other than for the sake of the sport and winning. The movie is meant to show the negative consequences of such obsession, but also the impressive results that can come from such effort and sacrifice. 

Although some of the plot and characters weren’t executed well, the screenplay and viewing experience of the movie were truly phenomenal. The movie works quite well as a sports thriller and is an enjoyable experience, but it is probably not going to become a bona fide classic anytime soon.

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