After the Oscar-nominated worldwide box office hit Top Gun: Maverick, director Joseph Kosinski once again brings us a film filled with high-octane thrills. And whether it’s a coincidence or not, F1: The Movie shares elements with his previous blockbuster (also produced by Jerry Bruckheimer) in many ways. Besides the obvious high-speed machines, Kosinski’s latest film features a tale of two reluctant colleagues where a returning old veteran mentors an eager rookie with everything to prove. That said, F1 sadly does not reach the same highs as Maverick, but the film still delivers an incredibly entertaining wheel-to-wheel romp thanks to Kosinski’s kinetic direction and Brad Pitt’s charisma.
In a role that seems to be written for him, Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, an aging nomadic racing driver who will race for any team that will hire him. He is a former 1990s Formula One driver with a promising career ahead of him, until a major crash in the 1993 Spanish Grand Prix halted his career, a moment he keeps reliving in his dreams. Sonny is tracked down by his former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) and offers him an open seat in his struggling APXGP F1 team. With half of the racing season over, Ruben reveals he’s in danger of losing ownership because his cocky rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) lacks the maturity and experience to lead the team to victory. What’s worse is their “shitbox” cars, designed by the team’s technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), can’t compete with the top teams like Ferrari and McLaren. Ruben hopes that Sonny is the miracle the team needs to turn things around.
As you can already guess, Sonny and Joshua couldn’t be any more different and immediately butt heads. Joshua, always ready to smile and pose for the cameras, is endlessly enamored by the glitz and glamour that comes with being an F1 driver, while Sonny doesn’t really care about the money, and instead aims to rekindle his lost passion for driving once more. He’s also old school in his ways, preferring to run around the track with the crew and bouncing balls off the wall to train his reflexes, as opposed to all the high-tech equipment Joshua trains with.
It’s all standard stuff, really. F1 is not meant to break new ground in the genre of sports drama. Kosinski and Ehren Kruger (who also collaborated in Maverick) check off all the familiar story beats in their script as one would expect in this kind of movie, even down to the part where our blond-haired protagonist works his magic with the female lead, a character in which Condon finds herself yet again breaking through two male egos as she did in The Banshees of Inisherin. No, what makes F1 work so well lies in its technical craftsmanship in delivering these cliches, where each set piece is so polished and well done.
Of course, F1 is at its best when the cars are flying through the tracks. The studio was granted permission to shoot during the 2023 F1 season, traveling cross countries from one race to another and filming in the actual tracks with the real F1 drivers and teams. The shots of cinematographer Claudio Miranda (who also did Maverick) bring in an immersive experience on what it’s like to be in the driver seat. He has cameras set up in front of the actors faces, and also ones that show us their point of view. We feel the rumble of their cars and the breakneck speeds in which they turn in tight corners.
Joseph Kosinski fully understands how to maximize the star power of his lead star. Even with a runtime of 156 minutes, F1 is a breezy watch thanks to its exhilarating set pieces juxtaposed with the effortless charms of Brad Pitt. That said, as exciting as the racing may be, unfortunately the stakes just never reaches a point of real significance and lacks the dramatic weight needed to make us have any serious doubts about the fates of these characters. Still, F1 is a far better racing movie than it has any right to be and I had a good time seeing it in theaters, feeling the rumble of the cars with Hans Zimmer’s score blistering in the background. It successfully crosses the finish line, even if it’s not a podium finish.
Rating:
The Talking Screen 