28 Years After 'Heat,' Michael Mann Released His Most Divisive Thriller & It's a Hit on Streaming Actorsvaultpro

No one does thrillers quite like Michael Mann. The director of the seminal action thriller Heat, the hit espionage thriller The Insider, and the underrated crime thriller series Tokyo Vice, is a fan favorite among film fans. But even the best directors have duds. And, according to a large portion of people who watched his 2023 sports thriller, Ferrari, that’s exactly what Michael Mann produced. The film divided audiences during its theatrical run, and it has returned to do the same on streaming.

Ferrari is currently streaming on HBO Max, and the film is making a comeback on streaming. At the time of writing, Ferrari is the fifth most popular movie on HBO Max. Mann directed Ferrari, based on a script penned by Troy Kennedy Martin, which was inspired by the book Enzo Ferrari: The Man, the Cars, the Races, the Machine by Brock Yates. The film starred Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari (marking the second time Driver had played a famous Italian figure in three years, thanks to Ridley Scott’s House of Gucci), with a supporting cast that included Penélope Cruz, Shailene Woodley, and Gabriel Leone.

Unlike most biopics, Ferrari doesn’t tell the entire life story of its central subject. Instead, the film narrows in on the summer of 1957, a period when the Ferrari company was failing, and Enzo took drastic measures to save the business. The official synopsis reads:

“Ferrari is set during the summer of 1957. Behind the spectacle and danger of 1950’s Formula 1, ex-racer, Enzo Ferrari, is in crisis. Bankruptcy stalks the company he and his wife, Laura, built from nothing ten years earlier. Their tempestuous marriage struggles with the mourning for their one son. Ferrari struggles with the acknowledgement of another. His drivers’ lust to win pushes them out to the edge. He wagers all in a roll of the dice on one race, the treacherous 1,000-mile race across Italy, the iconic Mille Miglia.”

Why Was ‘Ferrari’ Divisive?

Adam Driver as Enzo Ferrari in Ferrari

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This should be prefaced by stating that Ferrari was by no means a critical flop. The film holds a decent 73% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with an equally decent user rating of 73%. However, when compared to Michael Mann’s biggest hits, like the aforementioned Heat, it’s easy to see how Ferrari‘s performance was less than stellar.

A closer look at the user reviews on Rotten Tomatoes reveals that not many people rated the film five stars. Instead, the reviews range from decent four-star reviews, with a lot of middling 3 and 2.5 stars, and several one-star ratings. Most users felt that the film simply lacked passion for its central subject, and that there was no actual love or desire to tell the story it was presenting. “Ferrari had a passion for cars and racing, but there was little passion in this movie,” wrote one user. Another agreed, saying, “I am a huge fan of Michael Mann, and this movie was just OK. The big problem was the story. When the movie ended, I thought, ‘That’s it?'”