Joseph Kosinski’s slick filmmaking and Brad Pitt’s superstar wattage fuels F1 past its formulaic plotting to deliver an entertaining and technically impressive sports movie.
F1 is very much like the impressive Formula One cars featured in the movie: take the box-office winning plotting of Top Gun: Maverick as the engine; one of the best young directors in Joseph Kosinski (TRON: Legacy) as crew chief; a blockbuster producer in Jerry Bruckheimer (Crimson Tide) as the owner; and Brad Pitt as the superstar diver and you have yourself one hell of a movie vehicle.
What F1 lacks is originality. Writer Ehren Kruger no doubt did a copy and paste job of his Top Gun: Maverick script (with a helpful dose of Days of Thunder) in this story of a struggling race-car team navigating trial and triumph on the Formula-One circuit.
Brad Pitt stars in F1 as Sonny Hayes, a veteran driver whose life pursuit is to master all matter of four-wheel vehicle competition. Fresh off a win at Daytona, Sonny is recruited by his old friend Roben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) to drive for his struggling Formula One team APXGP. With hotshot rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) a pain in his side and past traumas to contend with, Sonny has to pull himself and his team together to survive life in the literal fast lane.
Made in collaboration with Formula One governing body FIA, the (reportedly) $300 million budgeted F1 strives for authenticity yet (according to racing fanatics) will more likely appeal to a broader audience whose only criteria is to be entertained. Regardless, Bruckheimer and Kosinski’s access to all things Formula One (including filming on actual racetracks during in-season tournaments) results in a sports movie that provides intimate access to the workings of a racing team where any flaw in the system – human or machine – can result in high-stakes ramifications.
It is a fascinating world for the uninitiated to explore, yet F1 is a movie and not a documentary, and Bruckheimer works his blockbuster pixie-dust to deliver a highly entertaining sports film. Burgeoning filmmaker Kosinski delivers upon his trademark of visual flair and technical prowess, with additional thanks to cinematographer Claudio Mirand (Life of Pi). The racing scenes are especially thrilling in its combination of sheen and speed, the F1 sound team and crisp editing by Stephen Mirrione (The Revenant) sure to be front-runners when it comes to awards season.
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Pitt balances the high-octane thrills with a charismatic cool performance as a nomadic racer-for-hire that is all guts and no glory, relishing the challenge of taming anything with four wheels while detesting the fame that comes with it. Damson Idris brings the cocky bravado needed to make his role work without becoming detestable; Kerry Condon is a breath of fresh air as an emotionally intelligent female technical director in a male dominated world; and Javier Bardem steals scenes with his magnetic presence in a welcome non-villainous turn.
In a cinema landscape that has become bereft of non-IP blockbuster movies, F1 delivers upon its tried-and-true formula of ace filmmaker plus superstar actor equals cinema gold. Exactly the kind of entertainment film fans have been craving.
