It ain’t art–it’s first class entertainment, driven by the some of the same team behind 2022’s global smash Top Gun: Maverick. This time, director Joseph Kosinski, writer Ehren Kruger, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer have put another big glamorous movie star in the driver’s seat and nailed the formula: F1: The Movie is built on speed, glamor, authenticity, and a few effectively-executed cliches.
Brad Pitt stars as the cool, charismatic Sonny Hayes, who 30 years before, was on track to become the top Formula One driver in the world when a catastrophic accident cut his career short. He proceeded to travel the world checking in and out of races then moving on, “one and done.” Now past his prime, but still an exceptional driver, he is approached by an old friend and Formula One owner whose team is in trouble. Javier Bardem plays Ruben Cervantes who believes Sonny has the just the right skills and experience to temper his arrogant but promising rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) and give his team a shot at becoming the best in the world.
Look. I know nothing about cars or racing, but I know a lot about the undercarriage of a movie and this one is built to last– in the right hands. An opening montage quickly lays out the premise, the context, the rush and risk of the world Sonny belongs to. Familiar tropes are greased for efficient acceleration: it’s a buddy movie; it’s about experience versus youth; it’s about personal redemption–Sonny’s also left three marriages and a gambling habit in the wake of a demolished racing career; it’s about love and money– but it’s not about the money for Sonny. It’s about competition, and tuning out the media and the merchandising, with a little romance thrown in involving a woman holding her own in a man’s world–that would be Kerry Condon as Kate McKenna the team’s strategist and technical director, whose no-nonsense exterior is sure to fall for Sonny’s nonsense.
What makes the movie run? Pitt’s magnetism on the screen, Bardem’s simmering exasperation as he massages the money guys behind the scenes while molding his dueling drivers out front into a cohesive team (Idris might have been cockier to ratchet up the rivalry) and above all, this director’s knack for building dramatic momentum with every lap around every track, scene after scene, putting us right in the driver’s seat. I was gripping the armrests and holding my breath with each curve and swerve.
Apparently many Formula One drivers and personnel were part of the action and offered input including World Drivers’ Champion Lewis Hamilton who provided expertise as a co-producer. Special cameras were used to put us all over the course and inside the cars that Pitt and Pearce– at key points and after months of training in a modified F2 car at speeds up to 197 mph– were actually driving! This is is exactly what I wanted from this film– the sensation of racing. Just enough technical talk was offered for the average viewer to have a glimpse of what’s at stake, what are the challenges to velocity, and what’s the moment-to-moment strategy involved in maneuvering a race car at ridiculous speeds across a finish line. So far, F1:The movie is on track to be the most exciting film of the summer. Let’s see where this race ends up…!
