Sports documentaries
have become the toast of the town in recent past. With Senna taking
worldwide acclaim, documentaries relating to different sports, like Fire in Babylon about West Indian cricket and Endurance about long distance runner Haile Gabrselassie, are emerging slowly.
Fastest takes a look at the breathtakingly fast and dangerous world of MotoGP racing. While the film is a great insight into all the different elements of the sport, it comes across more as a teaching tool, a MotoGP 101 course if I may, where an ardent fan will not necessarily find anything interesting.
Since my knowledge of the sport was zilch, I found the step-by-step information about the players, the companies, the dangers, and the superstardom quite interesting. Being a racing sport there are a lot of similarities that the documentary shares with Senna, but while Senna focused on just one individual and his story, Fastest looks at the sport as a whole.
The highlight of the documentary has to be the narration by Ewan McGregor who talks in a rather calm and soothing tone throughout the film amidst all the fast paced action and crashes on the circuit. Featuring interviews with riders like Rossi and Lorenzo, the documentary presents an inside look at the thinking of these individuals whose passion to race is so intense that they are even ready to race with broken bones.
Fastest is beautifully pictured comprising of multiple camera angles during the races specially the bike cams that takes the audience up close and personal to the real deal. It’s colorful and just like the individuals that make up the sport it is lively.
MotoGP, just like any other sport, is not without rivalries, dangers, confrontations, fashion, and the perks of success. With tremendous money, egos, and honor on the line it also has a certain business like approach. It is a sport that isn't for the faint-hearted and one where every race will lead to glory for some, but it can also lead to despair and tragedy for many.
Fastest is recommended viewing if like me you are clueless about the sport of MotoGP racing, but if you are a fan, then it might serve well as a nice compilation of some of the most memorable races and events from the history of the sport.
