Senna: documentary on Ayrton Senna – a Brazilian F1 racing driver and superstar – from the late 1980s to his career-ending bender in 1994. Director Asif Kapadia misses a massive trick putting the emphasis on the Formula One seasons and not making more of the personality, background and life story of Senna – a great, highly watchable, person with a ton of charisma and charm to spare – it’s definitely more of a racing documentary than the biopic title would suggest. As the film pans out we see the trials and tribs of several seasons – focusing on the politics of F1 and the Senna/Prost rivalry – most of which is dramatic and juicy enough to keep a non F1 fan like me interested. There’s a couple of crashes that turn your stomach and the odd interview clip of Senna. An unfortunate aspect is that the picture quality is piss poor, being mostly lifted from VHS archive footage that becomes more tolerable towards the end as TV technology improved. While it’s a decent enough picture, i walked out feeling I didn’t know much more about Senna than when I went in, which was a bummer as he seemed a fascinating person.

Score: 6/10