Aside from being a vehicle for crass commercialisation, be it on Apple’s or Formula 1’s parts, and certain parts of the movie feeling like a half-advertisement, half-documentary released exclusively on some new streaming platform, F1 is definitely a movie about racing.
Thank goodness that the racing is so, so good–you can smell the burning rubber, feel the wind of onrushing cars. And that’s even before they reach the F1 part.
Brad Pitt stars as Sonny Hayes, an all-American maverick who returns to the F1 circuit after 30 years away from the track. The movie does not let up about his age, whether it comes from jokes or plain recognition, but you only really feel his age when he acts it out. When Sonny Hayes is crammed into a racing helmet and you see nothing but his eyes, sunken crow’s feet a stark contrast to the other racers on the track–when he’s wracked with pain and soreness after each race, pushing his body to the limit.
This isn’t an Oscar-winning performance from Pitt. Still, the agony and torment he unwittingly shows as Hayes, compared to the bohemian carefreeness he wants to portray, brings compelling characterisation to a character you need to root for—because the movie has otherwise stripped down its characters and story to the minimum FIA regulations. The other actors play their parts, and… that’s really all they have to do.
It leaves the racing action to impress and, by golly, does it! When the wheels are furiously spinning on the track, the movie soars, unburdened by pesky things like having to show Pitt wearing his trusty, old-school AirPods Max, or a certain amount of screen time for Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen.
The racing is spectacular, breathtaking, and masterfully directed. Sonny’s unorthodox strategies throw a spanner in the works in the story’s races, but they are the huge chocolate chunks of an otherwise cookie-cutter film.
Seriously, the racing is so good. Director Joseph Kosinski and cinematographer Claudio Miranda (the pair’s sixth feature partnership, including Tron: Legacy and Top Gun: Maverick) put pedal to the metal for a sumptuous speed feast, emboldened by brilliant visual and sound editing.
The one question that constantly popped back in my mind after each exhilarating race: maybe I should be watching more F1 races?
If you’re a racing fan, this is a movie to revere. If you are a sports junkie craving the thrill of competition, this can be the gateway to something new. For everybody else, F1 might surprise you with just how much movie magic can be wrung out from cars going around the same track dozens of times.
F1 is out now.