Gran Turismo ★★★

WE’VE had a few films in the past year dealing with the development and marketing of products, including a basketball shoe in Air, a phone in Blackberry and a game in Tetris.

Gran Turismo isn’t so much about the hugely successful video game, but rather part of the marketing campaign to test whether a instinctively-gifted gamer could compete against classically-trained race car drivers.

Audacious and potentially reckless, the campaign eventually resulted in Jann Mardenborough becoming a professional driver, despite the scepticism of many in the racing industry and a crash that could have killed him.

South African Neill Blomkamp, whose main previous credits include sci-fi thrillers District 9, Elysium and Chappie, would seem at first blush to be an unlikely choice of helming a straight drama.

But Blomkamp’s ability to merge the real and technological worlds proves critical in bringing to the screen a realistic and entertaining journey from dreaming in front of a screen in a suburban English bedroom to piloting a speeding vehicle in the Le Mans 24-hour race.