Driven

A greedy pilot hits hard times after the FBI catches him transporting drugs, during a trip where he also visits Disney World with his family, dissolute rupture, grievous error (Jason Sudeikis as Jim Hoffman). 

He agrees to become an informant rather than spend 30 years in the can, and he's set up with a house in the suburbs with a modest income to keep up appearances.

With nothing major immediately materializing he has time to relax and socialize, meeting John DeLorean (Lee Pace) of all people, the two strike up a laidback friendship.

DeLorean's trying to find a way to create and manufacture a unique car, which harnesses years of hands-on experience, in a smooth flowing incomparable ride.

But it's a rather complicated affair involving manifold intricate parts, how to build it, where to build it, how to market it, while still maintaining control of his company.

Hoffman's advice proves fertile and the project sees mechanistic germination, and although there are impassioned critiques, forward motion is swiftly accelerated.

Jim and his wife (Judy Greer as Ellen Hoffman) enjoy their new life attending parties without having to work, but the FBI hasn't forgotten their commitment to engage in duplicitous sincere snitching.

As problems abound for DeLorean it becomes apparent he needs 30 million.

Which Hoffman's drug trafficking contact (Michael Cudlitz as Morgan Hetrick) can provide.

If he's willing to boldly risk everything.

Insights into a world I've never understood in terms of practical realization, lucrative ideas productively entwined with the design for commodities people actually want.

I like driving cars they're convenient but I've never really wanted to own one, bus métro and kayak so much less of a bother, not to mention simply strolling around.

It seems like if there's money to be made there are many better ways to acquire it within the law, that don't engender latent paranoia in everything you do afterwards throughout the day.

And problematize flourishing friendships as they do for Mr. Hoffman in Driven, as he struggles with competing loyalties ethically conflicting with frenzied comeuppance.

A cool film nevertheless directly interrogating high stakes happenstance, still somewhat suave considering its blunt extolled intermittent playful hi-jinx.

Perhaps I'll own a vehicle some day, I'm hoping green alternatives are much cheaper (and faster) by the time that happens.

Don't know if I'll drive it that often.

Although it'd be nice to hit the open road. 

Ford v Ferrari

I could never get into car racing.

No matter what the track.

I watched a car race once one afternoon when I was 10 years old or so, while two brothers started brawling for some reason, and after 5 minutes or so it generally lost its appeal, I'm afraid I never had the desire to watch one again, cold storage, dusted away.

I like films however, so if a film about car racing is nominated for best picture at the Oscars I figured there must be something to it, something that transcends the actual racing itself, and perhaps highlights a point or two I never would have taken into account if I hadn't seen it, although I did respect car racing meanwhile, it's just something I could never get into.

Into watching.

It sounds fun, like it'd be something fun to do, not watch.

The film does a great job of demonstrating how much thought goes into winning such races, the coveted expertise possessed by precious few aficionados, who take the time to actively pursue their passion without thinking much about reward, the love of the game drives them, and it's impressive how much they know.

Honestly, seeing a company that was as big as Ford at the time take on a much smaller company that was going out of business (Ferrari) didn't appeal to me much, it's like the company that already has everything backed up by unlimited resources competing against a devout artist, who's passionately spent everything in the pursuit of something breathtaking and unique.

It's super American.

I didn't care for that aspect of the story much, but since Ford had the reputation for making less specialized cars and wanted to prove they could do something unique, I appreciated the improbability of the challenge, which would have seemed more profound without the wealth.

The incredible wealth.

But the team Ford assembles isn't rich, it's composed of hands on struggling independent artists who thoroughly understand their craft, and the film excels as they bat heads with bland executives, whose knowledge is much more concerned with spectacle (they think more about what to do if they've won as opposed to how to actually go about winning).

For some domains, a large bureaucracy functions well, ensuring the delivery of various services for vastly different markets, the inherent intricacies and size of which require multiple levels of thought, positions occupied by workers familiar with the terrain, and the flexibility to calmly deal with manifold contingencies.

If you're trying to win a race, however, if you're doing something highly specific for an individualistic set of circumstances, and there aren't multiple levels of thought, there are just a couple of highly skilled professionals who have the knowledge to get the job done, who in fact know what they're doing, and are making the most relevant observations, like Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and Ken Miles (Christian Bale) in Ford v Ferrari, then, as Carroll and Ken mention in the film, the bureaucracy can get in the way, and make simple decisions that need to be made absurdly complex, the absurd complexities making the practical goal unachievable, keep it simple, keep it practical and hands on.

If you want to do something bureaucracy can be frustrating because you have to wait so long for approval to do the simplest things.

Not so much in politics where it's important to think about the impacts of what you're doing.

But if you like the bureaucratic ebb and flow, I suppose the argument itself is somewhat compelling.

The film is somewhat direct and easy to follow, no nonsense is the phrase writers employ in writing such a narrative I imagine, everything has a traditional relevant point, and it presents a thoughtful situation full of risk, trial, error, reward.

It's the kind of light film pretending to be tough that makes a positive impact, if you don't think about it too much, if you just sit back and take it in.

It would have been cool if the impact the experimental nature of race car driving makes on domestic automobile manufacture had been briefly explored.

And it hadn't been so massive, so Goliath.

A generalized examination of a complex phenomenon.

Nice to see Jon Bernthal (Lee Iacocca) with a larger role.

Fast Five

Fast cars, frenzied action, forlorn characters, and frenetic frictions make up Fast Five's feverish collisions as the duration of its franchise is significantly distended.

Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his team of vehicular visionaries are on the run from both the law and a Brazilian gangster as familial responsibilities reconstitute their pursuit of happiness.

As if they're beyond good and evil.

They're not trying to rob from the rich and give to the poor, they're trying to heist around a hundred million and make a break for the sunset. They have the tools and possess the know-how; it's now just a matter of exceptional skill and impeccable timing.

Not to mention good buds and a wrought iron reputation.

The film's intense and fun to watch. There are many logical miscues but it is deeper than it appears on the surface.

For instance, Brazilian gangster Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida) thinks he can control communities by providing them with lavish gifts. He provides the finances for projects and expects a high degree of subservience in return. After he places an enormous bounty on Dominic's head, you'd expect there to be at least one scene during which he encounters an agile opportunist, but this doesn't happen. Since the population is so used to Reyes's duplicity, no one trusts him unless they have to, and therefore no one seeks to betray Toretto.

Hence, at least some of the thought put into Fast Five wasn't geared towards stunts and getaways, and if you can get over the stock characters and sensational situations it's worth checking out. These films aren't really about employing more advanced rhetorical devices, their more advanced rhetorical devices are built into the ways in which they present more elaborate sensational situations, 'out-witting' what's taken place in their predecessors, and using a gangster's safe guarded by the police to smash up both the police and the gangster, well, that was a good idea.

But don't take my word for it.