"Senna" is a racing documentary that takes us into the jittery, jumpy, nerve-racking driver's seat of Formula 1 race cars of the 1980s and '90s.
More interestingly, it gives us access to the sometimes acrimonious driver's meetings of the day, when track officials and the sport's imperious rulers fielded and often brushed off testy, emotional questions from the drivers.
No, NASCAR coverage on TV never looks like this.
The film captures a bitter rivalry between two of its stars, a rivalry that sometimes involved very NASCAR-like behavior - guys running into each other, taking them out of a race.
And at its center is the famed Brazilian Formula 1 driver Ayrton Senna. This ESPN/Universal documentary lets him come off as a sensitive, but sometimes prickly and always very competitive soul.
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"Senna" makes a fascinating subject in a pretty entertaining film about a sport that isn't followed that closely by most Americans. But our very ignorance of that subject helps the film and adds to its impact. We don't know this story by heart.
A child of wealth and privilege, Senna rose from go-cart racing to Formula 1 hero in very short order, a brilliant driver who became a national hero in Brazil. We follow his career from those early days, when he took slow cars and drove them with such skill and aggression that he made them competitive, to his years at the pinnacle of the sport - models and TV stars on his arm, vast crowds of fans wherever he took off his helmet.
The documentary gets down and dirty with Senna's growing rivalry with the French Formula 1 champ Alain Prost, who here comes off as just as competitive and temperamental as Senna, but with a sneaky streak as well. They journey from teammates to foes to "war" in fairly short order, and dominated their sport in the '90s. Their conflict creates the money moments in "Senna," as they duel in cars by Ferrari, McLaren and Lotus.
Review
Senna
***
• Rated: PG-13 for some strong language and disturbing images.
• Director: Asif Kapadia.
• Cast: Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost
• Running time: 106 minutes.
