‘Ford v Ferrari’ gets a tsarist makeover in ‘Battle of Motors,’ a lavish Russian drama about a race from St. Petersburg to Monte Carlo

“Bitva motorov” (“Battle of the Engines”), an adventure film directed by Ilya Malanin and inspired by real events, is now in Russian theaters. Andrey Nagel (played by Ivan Yankovsky), an automobile enthusiast in the early 20th century, decides to test the first Russian car, the Russo-Balt, in the Monte Carlo Rally. He and engineer Dmitry Bondarev (Yura Borisov) set out from St. Petersburg. Film critic Eduard Zhuravlev reviews this entertaining film, which can’t quite avoid patriotic undertones.