F1™ The Movie

In “F1™ the Movie,” Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a former Formula One driver who retired in the 1990s after a near-fatal crash. Living a nomadic life as a gambler and racer-for-hire, he is recruited by his old friend and F1 team owner Ruben Cervantes to return to Formula One with his struggling team.

F1™ The Movie Review

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, summer movies were fun communal experiences that asked little more than that audiences escape into their fictional worlds of wonder and excitement. Miraculously, F1 races past modern Hollywood’s creative and political yellow flags to deliver a visceral experience that will redline your adrenaline levels. If you don’t get a speeding ticket on your way home, no pit crew on Earth can fix what’s wrong with you.

                   

Brad Pitt’s charisma should have its own agent. He’s always been an interesting actor to watch because, with perhaps the exception of his breakout role in Thelma and Louise, he’s never tried to skate on his good looks. Yet, one of his defining qualities as a performer is an otherworldly comfort in his own skin that can only come, at least in part, from being as handsome as he is. In F1™ The Movie, once again, the Oklahoma native shows that he’s more than just a pretty face as he leads the film’s cast of mostly forgettable characters as the stoic man’s man, Sonny Hayes. Hayes is a broken man who has spent the last 30 years chasing something, he knows not what. But he sure as heck figures it out at 200kph while banking on the deadly curves of the Formula One racing circuit.

It’s paper thin, but Pitt’s magnetism and quiet confidence are more than enough to get you to the finish line.

Likewise, neither the rest of the characters nor the plot or subplots are particularly dynamic or original. There’s a hint of conflict between Pitt and the team’s number one racer, a dash of will-they-won’t-they romance between Pitt and Kerry Condon’s character, etc.

Rather, the film relies on a highly balanced fuel mixture of archetypes and narrative shorthand, employing immediately identifiable motivations and situations as a storytelling pace car that quickly moves the audience into the starting position. We see it. We get it. Now it’s time to get to the goods.

The “goods” in this case is the best racing cinematography in history (or at least in a long time). If you don’t watch it in IMAX, you aren’t watching the same movie that I did. Director Joseph Kosinski puts you in the F1 cockpit like no other movie, and you can practically taste the other racers’ exhaust. Unfortunately, there are a handful of sequences, almost all when the cars are rounding turns, in which the cars don’t appear to be moving as quickly in real life as they are supposed to be within the film. Whether this is an optical illusion or a directorial oversight, only Kosinski can say, but each instance was a distraction.

Another minor distraction, there are quite a few accents to decipher at once, and, combined with the sounds of racing in the background, some dialogue gets lost. Finally, there’s a steady drumbeat of racing announcers that narrate the various turbocharged clashes, and some of them are not quite up to the challenge. It’s a nitpick, but I found it troublesome while watching.

That’s it. There’s not much more to say. F1 is a simple movie that gives you just enough to root for, just enough interpersonal drama to keep you engaged, and gallons of high-test spectacle to enjoy.

WOKE REPORT

What’s Not Woke

• Brad Pitt’s character silently prays before every race.

Hamilton

• In the real world, Lewis Hamilton is the only black driver in F1 history, yet the movie co-stars a black actor playing an F1 driver. What a coincidence. That said, it’s not as though he is there to replace an established white character, nor is his race made an issue or topic to beat us over the head with in any way. Furthermore, Damson Idris holds his own as Pitt’s teammate.
• Less than 1% of the F1 workforce comes from black or other minority backgrounds. Yet, the pit crew and techs are a pretty diverse bunch.

But Can She Back Into A Parking Spot

• Speaking of diversity, while more women than minorities are working in F1 today, they remain scarce. However, Pitt’s F1 team has both a lady tech and the only female Technical Director in this fictional F1’s history.
  • However, and this is why it barely nudged the Woke-O-Meter, the tech’s role is virtually non-existent, and she’s little more than a glorified extra; Kerry Condon’s Tech Director is there more as a potential love interest for Brad Pitt’s character than anything else. There is no proselytizing or professional victimhood on display, and Condon’s character doesn’t have some massive chip on her shoulder. Her motivations are personal rather than trying to prove to the world that women can be as good as men.
  • The one woman in the pit crew has a very minor subplot that goes nowhere and feels tacked on, serving only to make a point about gender equality. She makes a couple of mistakes and seems nervous, as though she’s new to the team (it’s unclear). Pitt’s character speaks up for her once in front of the team after she screws up. Later that night, she thanks him and then asks him not to do it again, because it “makes [her] look like [she] needs help.” Whether this has anything to do with her gender or not is a matter for the audience to decide.
    • I didn’t mark the Woke-O-Meter down much at all for this because it is both incredibly vague and such a small part of the movie that I forgot about her and her subplot until I looked at my notes, and even then, I had to think about it.