F1 ☆☆☆☆

Starring: Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris, and Kerry
Condon

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski

irector Joseph Kosinski has always been destined for blockbusters. Kosinski really hit his stride with Top Gun: Maverick, a grand type of blockbuster film that made almost $1.5 billion, earned a Best Picture nomination, and is rightfully in the conversation as one of the best action films of the 21st century.

Like Maverick, F1 is another gigantic summer film led by one of the biggest film stars in the world about the past generation trying to compete with the young stars, reckoning with the fact that their day might be over. Yet it also manages to not quite be “Maverick but with Formula 1 cars” either. F1 is the type of film that makes you want to go to the movies, the type of feature that makes you want to sit down, eat popcorn maniacally like you’re Tom Cruise watching Mission: Impossible—The Final Reckoning, and enjoy a big, entertaining spectacle with a bunch of strangers. F1 might fall into the same clichés and plot lines that you’ve seen in similar films about racing and sports in general, and you can probably tell where this is headed from the starting gate. But, still, it’s also quite possibly one of the most impressive and exciting racing films ever made.

Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is a racer who has spent his whole life starting over. Sonny lives in his van, and we’re told he has a history full of gambling debts, ex-wives, and bad mistakes. Sonny used to be a Formula One driver, but quit after a big crash in the ‘90s, and now he goes from race to race, and can drive anything that’s thrown at him. After winning a race, his former F1 racing partner, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), comes to him with a proposition. Ruben is now the owner of a failing F1 team known as APXGP, which hasn’t had a big win in three years, is $150 million in debt, has a rookie driver, and Ruben is at real risk of losing his club. With half the season over and only nine races left, Ruben invites Sonny to join the team and help him turn things around. While Sonny usually doesn’t go in for this type of race or team anymore, he accepts the challenge, seemingly as a way to prove to himself that he’s still got it at this level of competition.

As Sonny joins APXGP, F1 becomes not just a film about digging this team out of the hole, but about two-star racers coming to grips with each other. Sonny becomes a blast from F1’s past when he joins the team, but he also has to reckon with Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a rookie looking to prove himself, despite not having much to show for his work so far. F1 balances these two racing powerhouses nicely, slowly moving them towards finding common ground and a way to work together.

Sonny does things a bit more classically: instead of the gym, he works out in his bedroom and runs the track the day before a race, he knows how every element of a race impacts the outcome, and he’s also a bit of a wild card; he knows how to shift a race through unconventional means to get a leg up on the other racers.

Meanwhile, Joshua is of a new era, where social media presence and press are important. He works out at a high-tech gym, tests out scenarios in a racing simulator, and has lofty goals of becoming a racing star. With these two working together, F1 sees them finding the benefits of doing things both the old and the new way, as they discover there are positives to both approaches. They’re both trying to prove themselves, but with different intentions and end goals.

F1 also does an excellent job of reminding us that Formula One is a team sport. Yes, Sonny and Joshua are behind the wheel, but everyone on the team has an impact on the final outcome. We’re introduced to Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), the technical director for the team, who can make adjustments to the cars based on what the two racers need, and we get to see how those changes make a huge difference. We’re also shown how just a few extra seconds spent by the pit crew can alter a race, and how the timing of that team can change everything. As Sonny says at one point, the race is all about each member doing their best, shaving a few seconds off here and there to make those small moments add up to big time. Sonny and Joshua can race their best, but it doesn’t matter if everyone else can’t hold their own.

Kosinski is fantastic at making this all come together and showing us, just how much every person matters, and the screenplay by Ehren Kruger (co-writer of Maverick) makes us care about each of these individuals on the team. F1 shows that a race is an amalgamation of small choices that all add up to victory, and it’s thrilling to watch. Technically, F1 is a marvel that is often quite stunning to behold.

This is also a pretty wonderful spotlight for this cast, particularly the three leads. It’s been a while since Pitt has been able to play up the fact that he’s one of the true major movie stars still around today, and he plays Sonny like an old cowboy, ready to mosey on to the next town once his race is done. Pitt gives Sonny just enough pathos and backstory for us to care, and excels at this type of character. Idris is also a nice surprise as the racer trying to prove himself to the world. We see the arrogance that any racer must inherently have to do this for a living, yet also the care and dedication he has to being one of the greats. Of course, Condon is also fantastic as Kate McKenna, who thankfully is far more than just a romantic option for Sonny, and becomes maybe the most important part of this team. She’s a formidable presence, adept at navigating complex roles, and it’s great to see her in a role of this size in a movie of this scale after her great performance in The Banshees of Inisherin.

Despite the excitement and stunning race footage that F1 provides, it’s also placed in a story that we’ve heard countless times before. And while that’s in no way damning here—not by a long shot—it is a bit silly at times in how much it plays in the clichés. Like a good racer, you’ll probably be able to tell where every turn and twist is going to go, yet it’s the quality and impressive nature in which F1 hits these turns that puts this in conversation for the best racing film ever made. When the excitement and tension of the races are as good as they are here, you can ignore a bit of canned dialogue or a goofy trope that has played itself out one too many times.

Between this and Top Gun: Maverick, Kosinski has shown he’s amazing at creating this sort of grandiose, big-budget crowd-pleasers that feel massive in a way we rarely see anymore. F1 is an absolute blast and one of the most exciting films to come out this summer, a film that will put you on the edge of your seat and make you glad that filmmakers like Kosinski are still making films like this today.

– Courtesy: Collider.com