Movie Review: ‘F1’

Plot: Aging racer and former Formula One prodigy Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) lives a nomadic lifestyle, acting as a racing “gun for hire” for whatever team will have him. After winning the 24 Hours of Daytona, Sonny is approached by his former teammate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) who owns the APXGP F1 Team. With the team desperate and Ruben’s investors threatening to sell the team if APXGP doesn’t win a race by the end of the season, Ruben offers Sonny the opportunity to test drive for a spare slot on the team. Although initially hesitant, Sonny relents and brings his own maverick, rough and tumble approach to racing to the new team. Along the way he’ll have to contend with talented but arrogant rookie racer Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) and Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), the first female technical director on the Formula One circuit. But can Sonny’s cavalier attitude mesh with his new team in order to a win a race before the end of the season?

Review: From the very first moment F1 revs its cinematic engines to the time the credits park themselves in the garage, it is chock full of movie cliches. The devil-may-care-plays-by-his-own-rules aging athlete that becomes a reluctant mentor, the cocky but talented rookie that initially hates but then respects said aging athlete, the inevitable accident and subsequent hospital stay (2Xs), the in-house betrayal, the will-they-of-course-they-will romance, the technical director with something to prove, and the triumphant final race–it’s all here. There’s so many cliches in Ehren Kruger’s script that if the screenplay was a gas tank and the cliches petrol, the gas would be overflowing onto the ground.

And you know what? I could not care less.

There’s a perplexing trend among film critics and movie influencers to dismiss movies that have familiar tropes. While the debate about cinematic originality continues to rage, there’s a reason audiences keep going back to watch humans combat an alien invasion, star crossed lovers reunite, final girls outsmarting the psycho slasher, and underdog sports teams winning the championship. We gravitate towards these kinds of stories because ultimately they touch on the human condition. Although I always welcome originality in storytelling, there’s nothing wrong with films that utilize familiar tropes as long as they execute them well. And F1 executes them damn near perfectly.

In the most Dad coded film since his 2022 blockbuster hit Top Gun: Maverick, director Joseph Kosinski delivers a crowd pleasing, celluloid smash that’s wildly entertaining and left me with a giant grin on my face. For those of us like myself who came of age in the 1980s and 90s, F1 feels like a throwback to a bygone era of filmmaking where the testosterone was high enough to be in the Balco Report. It captures the intensity of Richard Donner’s Lethal Weapon and feels in many ways like a spiritual sequel to the late Tony Scott’s Days of Thunder.

The success of F1 hinges on Brad Pitt’s performance as Sonny Hayes. In an age where movie stars seem to be a dying breed, Kosinski knew exactly what he was doing when he cast Pitt. In fact, other than Tom Cruise, I don’t seeing any other actor being able to fill this role. Pitt’s Sonny is equal parts Steve McQueen in Le Mans, Alan Ladd in Shane, with just a dash of Chris Hemsworth’s cockiness in Thor for good measure. He’s an asshole (or a swan if you go by Joshua Pearce’s slang) but he’s a likeable asshole. Think John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in The Searchers but slightly more vulnerable and you’ll be in the ballpark. Pitt is charismatic and electrifying. There’s an aura about Sonny that just makes people naturally gravitate towards him even if it’s not immediate. How he rallies the APXGP team around him is almost Norman Dale-esque. You want the team to win as much as you want Sonny to win. His chemistry with Kerry Condon’s Kate and Idris’s Joshua was palpable and sublime.

While certainly this is a star vehicle for Pitt, the supporting cast gets plenty of time to shine. I’m a newcomer to the works of Damson Idris (Snowfall) but I have to say I was impressed. It’s not easy to go toe-to-toe with a star like Pitt, but Idris holds his own. His Joshua comes off cocky but endearing, someone who clearly needs to discover the wisdom of active listening. However, you’re invested in his arc even if you know exactly where its heading. Oscar nominee Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) also stands out as Kate McKenna. Whip smart with a scathing tongue, she proves much more than Sonny’s eventual love interest. She’s a technical director that’s out to prove she belongs and you want Kate to engineer the perfect car just as much as you want Sonny to drive the perfect race. Javier Bardem also shines as Ruben with his various exchanges with Sonny being some of the funniest parts of F1.

Of course the real question for fans of the sport (not that you have to be one to enjoy the movie) is how are the racing scenes? I write this with no hyperbole, these are some of the most electric, engaging, thrilling, and powerful racing scenes I’ve ever seen put to film. Apple designed special onboard cameras just for this film and Panavision also developed a unique remote control system that allowed cameras on the cars to create panning movements. Combine this with Oscar winner Claudio Miranda’s (Life of Pi) scintillating cinematography and Hans Zimmer’s pulse pounding, electric hybrid score that features orchestral and electronic music, and you’ve got a recipe for a high octane thrill ride. There’s also some excellent needle drops with Dom Dolla’s “No Room for a Saint,” Chris Stapleton’s “Bad as I Used to Be,” and “Underdog” by Roddy Ricch the standouts.

Speaking of standouts, I took my Father (see what I did there Dad?) to see this film for his 76th birthday. Unlike me, this is a man who goes to the movies maybe once every two years. He absolutely ADORED this movie and couldn’t wait to talk to his friends about it. I honestly couldn’t get him to shut up about how much he loved it in the middle of the movie. If that’s not a ringing endorsement for F1 and a directive to hightail to your closest cineplex, then I don’t know what is.

My rating system:

1 God Awful Blind Yourself With Acid Bad

2 Straight Garbage

3 Bad

4 Sub Par

5 Average

6 Ok

7 Good

8 Great

9 Excellent

10 A Must See

Masterpiece

F1: 8/10