HITTING THE APEX (2015)
A documentary by Mark Neale
Coming to UK cinemas on 2nd September 2015
Available on DVD and Blu-Ray from 7th September 2015
Boxset containing Faster, Fastest and Hitting The Apex also available from 7th September 2015
Continuing with his MotoGP documentary series after Faster and Fastest, Mark Neale brings us HITTING THE APEX, a motorcycle racing documentary chronicling the years of 2007 to 2013 of MotoGP, concentrating on five of the most brilliant riders to race in the premier class GP: Valentino Rossi, Dani Pedrosa, Casey Stoner, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez and Marco Simoncelli. The film focuses on different times throughout these years that seemed to affect the riders in some way, for good or bad.
Kicking off with Valentino Rossi, a rider who has won 9 world championships and certainly looks on track for a 10th this season, we discover how The Doctor seemed to be in a league of his own with no-one to match his pace. After winning 5 world championships on the trot from 2001-2005, he finally meets his match in the form of Australian rider Casey Stoner and Spaniards Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa, each of whom bring the battle to The Doctor. Hungry for the win and with incredible talent, these three riders became the ones to beat to earn that top place on the podium. With Stoner storming to victory on the Ducati and Lorenzo, Rossi’s teammmate, also showing world championship skills, Rossi decided to move to Ducati as Stoner exited the Italian team for a Factory Honda ride. It’s from here that the documentary seems to explore the various riders, their skills and their troubles from crashes and injuries at the most critical of times (Pedrosa and Lorenzo) to struggles with the media and hassle of press engagements (Stoner) and even arguments with other riders over aggressive riding styles (Marco Simoncelli).
HITTING THE APEX covers the highs and lows during the years including Rossi’s uneventful move to Ducati and his return two years later to Yamaha, Marco Simoncelli’s fierce riding until his tragic death at Sepang, Lorenzo winning the 2010 championship and his incredible race at Assen after breaking his collarbone just two days earlier, and the arrival of Marc Marquez to MotoGP in 2013. This documentary covers it all, like a concise review of the past few years in MotoGP, with interviews with pit chiefs, family members of the riders and the five riders themselves including Colin Edwards.
At 2 hours and 18 minutes long, HITTING THE APEX is quite a lengthy documentary but feels as though it covers the majority of the important moments from the last five years of racing. There’s plenty of footage of the races, overtakes, passes and crashes, with even the infamous Rossi/Stoner scuffle at Jerez that saw Rossi apologize to Stoner who responded that Rossi’s ambition outweighed his talent. There’s so many magnificent and memorable racing moments and it’s great to see they have been immortalised in this exceptional documentary that does the riders justice. It’s exciting when it needs to be but serious when the situation calls for it, particularly when highlighting the risk these riders take when riding these powerful machines at such high speeds. The documentary touches upon the upsetting death of Simoncelli, a tragic moment which took away the amazing personality and rising star in the paddock. His passing is handled extremely well and is quite poignant, reflecting on how much he made an impact on riders and fans during his time in the premier class. They’ve respected his memory well without sugercoating his style of racing. Much like Marquez, Simoncelli took chances and they’ve shown the reality in the documentary as well as his progression in harnessing that aggression and eventually turning crashes and collisions into podiums.
After my disappointment with previous MotoGP documentary Fastest after the excellent Faster, HITTING THE APEX has restored my faith and is a fantastic documentary for motorcycle fans to watch and enjoy. Whilst those who’ve been fans of MotoGP for at least the last 10 years will be familiar with the events shown in the documentary, it still stands as a gripping piece of film that reminds you of the best and the worst the years had to offer for the various riders. I don’t feel that the film would be of interest to anyone not into MotoGP but then again, this film has been made for the MotoGP fans and in that respect it certainly hits the high notes.
The use of Brad Pitt as narrator for HITTING THE APEX was initially questionable with a monotonous opening dialogue for the first 5 minutes, as heard on the trailer, that almost appeared to be one of Tyler Durden’s motivational speeches. Fortunately, Pitt has less to say over the course of the documentary with the riders and the on-screen action doing most of the talking. His narration throughout the film after the opener is much less cutting and manages to highlight certain moments on-screen without distracting from the visual.
For fans of MotoGP, this is a must-watch. It might not bring much you haven’t already seen before but it certainly does well to stand in your collection as an overall review from the Stoner years to the arrival of Marc Marquez and his 2013 world championship triumph.
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