Powered by Pitt just as ‘Maverick’ was a matter of Cruise control
“F1: The Movie” is an entertaining spectacle populated by the ever-whizzing whine of Formula One race cars zipping by at jet speeds and some really tight editing that makes it feel like you’re in some next-gen, sensory immersion experience at Universal Studios. The vrooming crescendos that rise and fade with such regularity linger in the ears when you leave the theater – so much so that if you close your eyes, you can practically play it back.
The story in “F1” is pretty lightweight stuff: Old, has-been lion teams up with cocky prodigy who can’t get out of their own way as they seek pole position on the concourse of greatness. Pulling a bit from the Michael Bay playbook of cinematic bombast, “F1” is more “Days of Thunder” (1990) or “Gran Turismo” (2023) than “Ford v Ferrari” (2019) or “Rush” (2013); but what it lacks in emotion and gravitas it makes up in energized big-screen rendering. The cast, meanwhile, brings enough nuance to deepen the trope-driven premise bolted together by director Joseph Kosinski and writer Ehren Krueger. The duo pretty much made the same movie with wings and foils three years ago, when “Top Gun: Maverick” became the defibrillator shock that jolted the box-office back to life post-Covid.
That movie soared on the star power of its cinematic icon, Tom Cruise. The same is true here with Brad Pitt as that aging alpha, Sonny Hayes, a failed Formula One driver who returns to the circuit after 30 years away as a favor to old rival Ruben (Javier Bardem, light and amiable) to mentor young up-and-comer Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) for his fictional APXGP Formula One race team on the circuit opposite stalwarts Ferrari, Mercedes and McLaren.
A better name for “F1” could have been “Pitt Stop,” because no Pitt, with his casual, cool can-do, no movie – nope. Also there’s plenty of pit action, which is edited so snappily by Stephen Mirrione (“Traffic,” “Birdman”) and Patrick J. Smith that it’s as invigorating and thrilling as what takes place on the speedway.
At a press conference early on, Sonny is framed as “a great that never was” and a failed gambler with three bombed marriages who was driving a cab when Ruben comes knocking, and from the first engine rev you know Sonny and Joshua are not going to get along. Their first outing ends in a crash. As the action bounces around the global F1 race circuit – Britain, France, Las Vegas and Abu Dhabi – Sonny’s unconventional tactics initially seem dangerous and invites the ire of Joshua’s mom (a soulful Sarah Niles); they come to make sense to the team, including Joshua. Essentially Sonny’s the hockey goon of Formula One racing: a smash-mouth old schooler with staunch reasoning behind his risk-taking recklessness. The differences between Sonny and Joshua are underscored by their training regimens, high-tech treadmills and body sensor analytics versus “Rocky”-style jogs and dank, sweaty gyms.
Kerry Condon, commanding in “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022), rounds out an excellent cast but is disappointingly underused as the team’s technical director – the one who designs the cars to go faster. Sonny challenges her and her AI-assisted gadgetry to make “a car designed for combat.” The request befuddles Condon’s Kate for second, not because she’s not a half lap ahead of everyone else like Sonny, but because his request implies doing something against design regs and on-track rules.
Like “Ford v Ferrari,” there’s much about the business side of racing – the money and the imminent possibility of financial implosion – in the background. Lewis Hamilton, the first Black driver on the Formula One circuit, is one of the film’s producers alongside Jerry Bruckheimer, who produced Bay’s blam-blam projects such as “Days of Thunder” and both “Top Gun” films. The off-track drama works best when Sonny’s at the center. Joshua, through no fault of Idris, just isn’t as interesting; the character benefits from grinding against or gliding behind Sonny. “Now that is a handsome man,” notes Joshua’s mom when she first sees Sonny, and it’s a good point: It’s as hard to separate Pitt and Sonny as it is keep Cruise and his roles apart. They’re bona fide stars, blessed with a rare natural charisma that commands the screen just by showing up, and with “F1” and “Mission Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” the man-boys of the boffo box office have made riding off into the sunset a very romantic and profitable thing to do. (The two appeared onscreen together in “Interview with the Vampire” when Bill Clinton was the president and the Macarena was all the rage, cultural landmarks a reporter needles Sonny with in the film in regard to his 30-year F1 hiatus).
At two-and-a-half-plus hours, “F1” has redundancy and predictability in its storytelling that could have benefited from some of Kate’s design efficiencies. Then there’s that title. Did AI cook up that insipid moniker, or did F1 mandate it for filming on the circuit? The answer doesn’t much matter. Even a cliche such as “The Need for Speed” or a cheeky retread like “The Wind and the Lion” would have been better. More simple would have been, “Come and see our cool new race car movie staring Brad Pitt.” My review in a nutshell.
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