F1: The Movie
A thrilling throwback to racing movies of yesteryear like "Grand Prix" and "Le Mans," featuring Brad Pitt as an over-the-hill driver given the proverbial last shot in the hot seat.
Really good auto racing movies only seem to come along once every 10 or 15 years. “Rush” from 2013 was the last one that really stood out, and “F1: The Movie” will be the pace setter for the current cinematic generation.
It doesn’t break any molds, but it’s a thrilling old-school racing spectacle carefully apportioned with a solid dramatic undercarriage. It has parts from “Grand Prix” and “Le Mans” in its DNA. It features Brad Pitt as the proverbial over-the-hill driver given one last shot in the hot seat where he can chase glory — and that fleeting moment of peace where racing seems like flying.
At 61, Pitt may be in the waning days of his action star/heartthrob phase. But he’s settled in nicely to an acting career that was once overly defined by his looks. Pitt has a well-worn, believable charm here as Sonny Hayes, a vagabond wheel man who travels the world racing anything on four tires.
The setup is that he’s recruited by an old friend and racing pal, Ruben (Javier Bardem), now the owner of a fledgling team on the F1 racing circuit. Theirs is the worst outfit in the sport, and he needs a hail Mary pass to keep the company from being sold out from under him by the end of the current season, already half-gone.
Their goal isn’t to win races, just get into the top 10 and appear competitive.
Of course, Sonny will have to clash/tutor the headstrong young primary driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), who’s pushed by his people into thinking it’s all about social media clicks and endorsements rather than leading a true racing team. And there will be a similar rapprochement with Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), the only female car designer (aka technical director) in F1, who huffs at Sonny’s blustery ways but also shivers just a little bit at his macho swagger.
It all ends up clocking in right about where you think: an initially disastrous entry to the team by Sonny, followed by small adjustments that turn into bigger ones as he begins to lead them to more success, a huge second-act disaster that sets up third-act heroics. The screenplay by Ehren Kruger (“Top Gun: Maverick,” “The Ring”) hums like a well-tuned engine, doing exactly what it’s supposed to with no surprises or backfires.
Director Joseph Kosinski (“Tron: Legacy,” “Top Gun: Maverick”) seems to appreciate the material at face value and doesn’t try to spin it up into something mystical or high art. It’s a movie about guys who willfully face death every day on the job, but also the huge teams of experts who toil to help them succeed.
If people take nothing else away from “F1,” it’ll be an impressive presentation of just what it takes to make an F1 team go. The cars are basically modular collections of highly engineered parts that can be swapped out between races — and even in the middle of one. They use high-end simulations and computer modeling that would make the eggheads at NASA green with envy. And of course the pit crew, who sit around doing nothing until it’s time to do their job in fewer seconds than you can count on one hand.
Kosinski and his crew, from camera operators to production design to sound engineers, really put together a masterpiece of technical filmmaking. The action is high-intensity but also easy to follow and believable. The look-and-feel of the picture is so authentic, you can practically smell the scorched tires.
The movie’s a few ticks over 2½ hours long, but it never felt like it was dawdling.
At the center is Sonny, pushing the team to be more aggressive and not just accept a place in the back of the group. He demands Joshua refuse to let other drivers pass without a fight. He bends the rules around contact and when to pit his car so as to obstruct other drivers. And he brings some old-fashioned American obnoxiousness to a sport that’s more European and genteel in its approach.
“We need to build our car for combat,” Sonny presses Kate.
His backstory is that Sonny was once the Joshua of F1, 30 years ago, but a bad crackup left him seriously injured and without a ride. He’s spent the previous decades dabbling in every form of racing there is since, from dirt-track sprints to endurance runs at Daytona. His personal life has been similarly varied, with stints as a professional gambler and even steering a taxi for awhile.
Everybody else sees Sonny as a dead-ender, but from his lens he’s a purist eager to see what’s around the next curve ahead.
Pitt gifts Sonny with all sorts of little quirks, like the way he bounces two tennis balls at the same time to keep his reflexes sharp, or constantly plays with cards — always tucking one into his racing kit for good luck, with intentionally mismatched socks to boot.
Bardem and Condon both get meaty supporting parts, and the way their characters work out their relationships with Sonny leaves you with the sense they’re distinct individuals with real lives before and after his stint in F1. Idris has a similar hefty screen presence and isn’t just occupying the “kid” role.
I’ll commit some heresy here: I prefer the European model of racing, with lots of tight corners and even some racing on real roads, to the American style of oval racing aka “straight, then left, straight, then left.” This movie skillfully exploits the excitement and nerve-racking tension of how drivers fight for position through every hairpin.
“F1” is a gas, pure adrenaline rush that also tells well a relatable human story. It was just my speed.