Gran Turismo Movie Review: Video Game Brought To Reel Life With Real Events

There’s a reason that clichéd Cinderella tales, rags to riches stories and underdog sagas always gain traction despite following a formula that we’ve witnessed countless times. Something similar is happening in Gran Turismo. It's the life story of British motorsport driver Jann Mardenborough (Archie Madekwe), the winner of GT Academy, a reality show conceptualized by Nissan and Playstation. 

Jann is a 19-year old whose family isn’t really supportive of his love for Gran Turismo just like most of our parents. Life takes a U-turn as soon as he and several other brilliant simulator racers across the world get a message from Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom), a slick marketing executive who has just pitched the idea as a brilliant marketing tactic to his bosses at Nissan headquarters in Japan. 

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What unfolds are a series of competitions that transit from a racing simulator to an actual race track. There’s a lot of flair in the way the visuals progress trying to show similarities and differences between sim racing and actual seat of the pants feeling when driving a race car on the track. Things become even more lively as Jack Salter (David Harbour) enters as the team principal who’s supposed to keep these couch gamers alive by the end of these race qualifying sessions.In case you haven’t seen the trailer yet, this is one of his punch lines,“If you miss a line in a game, you reset. If you miss it on the track, you could die.”

You’d see hints of Ford vs Ferrari, along with Baby Driver tropes which is not a bad thing. The movie’s storyline is average at best but it's the track time that takes the cake. It blurs the line between the sim racing and actual racing beautifully with well executed audio and visuals. The nice, low-slung GT cars ranging from the obvious Nissan GT-Rs to Porsche, Aston Martins and BMWs to the exhaust note, the gear shifts that sound like a shot fired from a bolt action rifle. Of course, there’s a brilliant soundtrack ranging from Kenny G and Enya to Black Sabbath which you can imagine adding to your driving playlist if you don't already listen to them. 

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There are some distortions in the facts and timelines but that’s how movies are peppered to appeal to a wider set of audience. If you’re a fan of Sony’s legendary video game, the Gran Turismo, racing games or racing in general then this movie is something that should be on your watch list.