Fastest

What would you like to see in a film about MotoGP? Not a fictional film – a documentary? Gorgeous footage, of course, with lots of tasty super slow-motion. Rider interviews and anecdotes, too, getting inside the minds of these legends and seeing them away from the relentless glare of the media spotlight. Boat-loads of race action, we’ll need that too, and let’s add the insights of a bunch of paddock insiders – all we need now is someone off of Star Wars to do the commentary. I think that’s about all the boxes ticked, no?

Fastest is the latest incarnation in a series of documentary films about the world of MotoGP from director Mark Neale, and it ticks every one of the boxes above with a spectacular flourish. It’s to the film’s credit that it doesn’t follow a simple “this is what happened in race one, this is what happened in race two...” discourse of the 2010 season. Instead, the narrative is very non-linear, touching on a point here that links to another point there, exploring the theme and perhaps touching on another direction that would be interesting to pursue. As a consequence, darting about from point to point, it covers an awful lot of ground and stands a mile above a simple review of the season.

It does tell the story of the season, of course, but almost as an aside – far more, it paints a picture of the sport as a whole. If you wanted to show someone – an apathetic spouse, for example, or an indifferent relative – why the world of bike sport in general and MotoGP in particular is as all-encompassingly brilliant as we all know it is, you could do far worse than to sit them in front of the telly with Fastest queued up on the DVD player for a couple of hours.

That’s not to say that the appeal is only for the uneducated – even for the hardened fan I would think there’s much to enjoy. The aforementioned footage, of course, is a glorious visual treat, but maybe some of the more interesting segments are those where the riders are speaking – mostly shot with the rider on their own, everyone they speak to is open and straightforward, and you get some interesting insights. Without wishing to give anything away, Jorge Lorenzo’s recount of the start of his MotoGP career was a particular standout. That boy is tough.

Is there a downside? Well, it’s not perfect – it didn’t seem to showcase the rather pleasant noises that the modern premier class GP bike emits as much as I’d hoped, although in all fairness I need to give it a second chance by cranking up the TV at home. But on the subject of noise, I thought Ewan’s commentary was fairly indifferent – not bad, by any stretch, but a bit flat, not particularly inspiring. Seems pernickety to moan about how the words are spoken when the words themselves are so good, however.

Overall, I loved it – interesting, engaging, informative, entertaining. How could I give it anything other than 4.6 out of 5?

Paul Harris