Scenario of ‘Gran Turismo’ Gets Stuck in First Gear

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Rating: 2.0/5.0

CHICAGO – “Gran Turismo” uses the life story of a gamer named Jann Mardenborough to get its message across … he was a college dropout in the UK who used the hours spent behind the steering wheel in his bedroom to become a real race car driver. While the racing scenes deliver the goods, this poorly conceived piece of product placement never gets its narrative out of first gear. 


It is a novel approach, but sometimes his story threatens to get drowned out by seemingly incessant plugs for the driver simulator videogame Gran Turismo and a certain Japanese auto company. The film starts with Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) as a marketing exec who comes up with the idea of using the GT game as a way of appealing to the next generation of car buyers. So he recruits the top gamers in the world to attend an auto racing boot camp to see if they can hack it on the real track … and he enlists former racer and lovable grump Jack Salter (David Harbour) to oversee the recruits and whip them into shape.

Gran Turismo
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Releasing

The gamer stuff is meant to be the focus, but it’s honestly the weakest part of the movie. Turns out watching someone drive a virtual car onscreen isn’t nearly as interesting as watching the real thing. It’s only once the gamers get to the test track that the movie hits the accelerator at all.

David Harbour in particular gives this film a depth it frankly doesn’t deserve, as he manages to make a character out of the washed up mechanic/pit crew boss who imparts his years of experience to the newbies and gradually sees their potential. Oscar nominee Djimon Hounsou deserves credit here too starring as Mardenborough’s father, a former soccer star who wants his son to find a real skill in life so he doesn’t end up a has-been. This is essentially a hoary old sports movie cliché about the disapproving dad, but Hounsou somehow manages to find real emotion in it at times.

Orlando Bloom’s Danny seems more spokesman than character, adding the requisite product plugs during exposition dumps to move the story along. It doesn’t take a genius to see where the film goes from here, as main driver Jann tries to get over the hump and qualify on the real racing circuit. In that role Archie Madekwe does what he can, but I never fully got invested in his story, and no amount of subplots involving friends back home or rival racers on the track was able to alter that assessment.

On Track in ‘Gran Turismo’
Photo credit: Sony Pictures Releasing

Gran Turismo the Game is lauded for its attention to detail, but “Gran Turismo” the film doesn’t reward its audiences full attention. As a movie, it’s meant to be ignored, like a Netflix movie that somehow took a wrong turn into theaters instead. It was directed by Neill Blomkamp, who also directed the inventive “District 9” over a decade ago. The racing scenes have plenty of visual touches with Blomkamp taking his camera inside the car to see its engine whirring as drivers hit the gas.

But all that visual window dressing can’t obscure the fact that “Gran Turismo” is at best uninspired, and at worst downright boring before the end credits mercifully roll. It’s not an incompetent movie, but it is one that seems destined for a forgotten corner of streaming services sometime in the not-too-distant future.

By SPIKE WALTERS Contributor HollywoodChicago.com spike@hollywoodchicago.com