Until semi-recently, Formula 1 racing was only immensely popular pretty much all over the world except in the United States, but a combination of the proliferation of different portals for watching sports from other countries, the Netflix doc series Formula 1: Drive to Survive, and everyone having a lot of time at home during the pandemic exploded the stateside audience for the sport. So much so that a Las Vegas race was added to the season. You’re probably thinking, “It’s only a matter of time before there’s a big summer movie about it!” And you’re right. F1 ™ (also known as F1 The Movie) is equal parts flashy star vehicle, melodrama, technical showcase, and pure brand advertisement. The studio even sent out emails insisting that the trademark stamp be included in mentions of the title. Corporate synergy isn’t usually this well-crafted and entertaining.
Brad Pitt is Sonny Hayes, once a successful F1 driver who bounced out of the sport after a disastrous crash that nearly killed him. Now he’s a little washed up, gigging it out in NASCAR, where he’s found by old buddy Ruben (Javier Bardem), once a racer himself but now one of the owners of F1 constructor Apex Grand Prix. Ruben’s got a problem: his best driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), is too green, too undisciplined, and Ruben thinks Sonny can help wrangle him into being a better team player. He also knows that for Sonny, as they say, the action is the juice, and that he’ll go anywhere that guarantees him a steering wheel. And so, off to the races we go.
As melodramas go, F1 can pretty readily, dispassionately be described as “good enough” — in truth, all you really need for this film is a clothesline on which to hang the racing sequences (more on those in a minute). For his part, Pitt is in perfect grizzled mode; all he has to do is flash the smile and you buy that he’s competent and cocky but also, awww, vulnerable. This is his Paul Newman movie (Newman himself being quite an avid driver), and he’s absolutely good for it. But Sonny’s relationship with Joshua is pure sports movie cliché through and through, with the crusty vet corralling young protege who chafes at authority. And there’s precious little made of the insane amounts of money at stake and the intense pressure to compete in the sport with only a handful of available slots for drivers; F1 careers can come and go in a matter of weeks, but that’s not really at issue here, unfortunately. Much more interesting to watch, then, is engineer Kate (Kerry Condon), who is given the most exciting bits here that exist off of the racetrack, even if she regrettably winds up pigeon-holed in as Pitt’s eventual love interest.
The production also managed an astonishing level of embedment into F1. Apex Grand Prix may be a fictional team, but the film unit basically behaved like a real one, following the competitors from race to race throughout the circuit. The film’s characters and vehicles appear in the flesh (or metal) right alongside the real thing, and it results in a film absolutely jam-packed with cameos from real-life racers, team members, and managers; almost every scene includes more than one. All that verisimilitude goes a long way to successfully and thrillingly cementing the illusion here.
But none of this would be worth much if F1 failed to deliver the racetrack goods. Thankfully, then, the racing sequences are downright incredible. Director Joseph Kosinski and DP Claudio Miranda reteam after Top Gun: Maverick to achieve something just as thrilling and immersive. In keeping with the Cruise-approved mode of action filmmaking, the actors actually did almost all of their driving over multiple years of production. And while this practical work is certainly augmented with a lot of digital VFX, the base level of realism that roots the film simply can’t be beat, made all the more amazing on an IMAX screen with some truly gnarly, rib-rattling bass in the sound design. Few folks indeed should have trouble sitting through a thrilling game of auto pinball like this; it’s really the only thing F1 needed to execute perfectly for viewers to enjoy the intrinsic beauty of this well-designed machine doing exactly what’s it’s meant to do.
DIRECTOR: Joseph Kosinski; CAST: Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon, Damson Idris; DISTRIBUTOR: Warner Bros. Pictures; IN THEATERS: June 27; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 35 min.
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