Remember the movie about an unlikely sports hero whose whole life was a million-to-one shot? So does "Gran Turismo."

The hard-to-swallow movie — inspired by a true story that's saluted in an excellent closing-credits sequence — follows the "Rocky" playbook in its rise-and-fall-and-rise-and-fall-and-rise narrative. Its Rocky is Jann (Archie Madekwe), a young Brit who is such a master at the titular video game — sorry, "racing simulator" — that he is invited to an auto racing school, where he quickly demonstrates that his arcade skills translate to an actual racetrack.

"Gran Turismo" lacks an Adrian — Jann's girlfriend is such a nonentity that she's barely human (as is his mom, although she's played by Gerri "Ginger Spice" Halliwell) — but the other stock characters are here: Dad who doesn't believe in him (Djimon Hounsou). Supposed ally who wants to sabotage him (Orlando Bloom). Nasty competitor who plays dirty (Josha Stradowski). And a mentor whose gruff exterior hides a wounded heart of gold (David Harbour).

That last role is so by-the-numbers that it verges on parody — I kept expecting him to say, "If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball." But something happens as the movie develops and it's why "Gran Turismo" gets better as it goes: Harbour is outstanding. He plays most of his scenes with a bemused grin, as if letting us know he's in on the joke, and he does inventive things with gestures and eye rolls that make his supporting character the most compelling one in the movie.

He's a lot like the basic training sadists in movies such as "G.I. Jane" and "Devotion" except that when he bellows stuff along the formulaic lines of, "This is not just fun and games," it literally is just fun and games.

The problem with the beginning of the movie is that it's mostly us watching people play video games. We're supposed to be enraptured by Jann's unorthodox decision-making, I guess, but all of those scenes feel like they have stakes about as high as having to "Go directly to jail" in Monopoly.

I don't have a huge interest in auto racing, either — and "Gran Turismo" isn't great at helping us understand the difference between good and excellent drivers — but director Neill Blomkamp ("District 9") gives the film such visual panache that it almost doesn't matter. As movies such as "Days of Thunder" and "Le Mans" have shown, auto racing is photogenic even if all the time spent on races means the in-between scenes that are supposed to supply the human element amount to a list of story points such as, "What if he's driven by needing to prove himself to his disapproving dad?"

Maybe because it's a true story, "Gran Turismo" has an ungainly structure that's oddly involving. It has the opposite of what I think of as Netflixitis, where the streaming service drags every series out to twice as many episodes as it needs. "Gran Turismo" packs eight hours' worth of drama into a bit more than two hours.

There's probably no way to make all that plot seem elegant, but what "Gran Turismo" lacks in elegance or credibility it makes up for in style and excitement.

'Gran Turismo'

**1/2 out of 4 stars

Rated: PG-13 for brief language, violence and drinking.

Where: In theaters Friday.