F1 Review

2 weeks ago 6

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F1, also billed on the poster as F1 the Movie (the late-arriving suffix is presumably for the benefit of international audiences), arrives at a moment of reckoning for Hollywood studios. In motoring terms, the vanishing point refers to the point in the distance where the road seemingly disappears. To stretch the metaphor, this is how the movie industry sees itself: forever reaching ahead and rich with untapped possibility. However, this philosophy has taken a battering through various COVID-19 pandemics and strike-induced tolls.

At a time when bloated budgets and weakening franchises are alienating audiences and stretching profit margins to their limits, along comes a standalone racing drama unencumbered by the needs of existing franchise expectations. F1 is therefore a pleasingly old-fashioned throwback to the heyday of standalone blockbusters that were allowed to exist purely on their own terms.

The nostalgic familiarity owes a lot to the skilled crew behind the camera. F1 reunites the Top Gun: Maverick stable of director Joseph Kosinski, producer Jerry Bruckheimer, screenwriter Ehren Kruger, cinematographer Claudio Miranda and composer Hans Zimmer. Swap the latter film’s star, Tom Cruise, for Brad Pitt and you have an engine with all the requisite components to tick over nicely.

Can F1 do for racing what the spectacular Top Gun: Maverick did for jets? The answer is… very nearly. As a distinctly earthbound spectator sport, the cinematic qualities of Formula One cannot compare to the might of the U.S. Navy. However, Kosinski’s fine-tuned narrative mechanics keep us engaged throughout, even if our spirits never truly soar.

However, it’s not for want of trying. We meet Pitt’s character, Sonny Hayes, during a nippy, Daytona-set pre-title sequence, which effectively lays out the film’s red lines. Having triumphed in the 24-hour race, Sonny beats a hasty exit and one suspects, naturally, that it’s more than just other cars he’s racing on the track. He’s then approached by old friend and former Formula One team partner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem). We learn via de-ageing flashbacks that their partnership ended following Sonny’s horrific crash at an F1 race in Jerez, Spain, something that has haunted him ever since.

Ruben now heads up the struggling APXGP racing team, anchored around young prodigy Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). The kid is good but undeveloped and Ruben desperately needs a second-stringer on the team to gee Joshua up and restore shareholder confidence. Tensions flare when Sonny accepts the deal and arrives at the bastion of British motor racing, Silverstone, to the obvious contempt of Joshua and the pit technicians. This includes Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), the technical director who, at Sonny’s behest, starts developing a new chassis for the APXGP car.

However, it’ll take more than technical tweaks to resolve the yin and yang tension between veteran Sonny and talented upstart Joshua, which results in several personal blow-outs both on and off the track. For Sonny, however, it’s deeper than that – as he explains to Kate, he is striving for that perfect lap when it feels like the car is ‘flying’.

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Claudio Miranda’s cinematography, augmented by IMAX, is once again a wonder, compressing the cinematic space between aerial wides and the close-ups of the imperilled drivers while taking in at least two gut-wrenching crash sequences. The frequent shots of Pitt and Idris behind the wheel add the same sort of veracity that we got from the in-flight sequences in Top Gun: Maverick. Stephen Mirrione’s editing does an excellent job of dynamically switching gears between cars, crowds and the pit crew while the sprightly cast does well to lift a rote script with sharp comic timing and interplay.

Rising British star Idris is a compelling mix of the likeable and the cocky while Condon brings pragmatic charm to her role, even if an eye-rolling romantic sub-plot threatens to undercut her agency in a way that reminds us of the worst tendencies of Jerry Bruckheimer’s 1990s movies. Bardem is compelling as the compromised team owner, torn between friendship and business, while Ted Lasso‘s Sarah Niles steals scenes to the end as Joshua’s mother Bernadette, ably mixing acidic asides with pathos.

There are, of course, daft contrivances. The running Greek chorus from real-life Formula One commentator Martin Brundle is nothing less than an extended exposition dump that in no way resembles an authentic sports commentary (again, this is surely deferring to those audience members with no knowledge of the sport or its nuances). One also has to question Sonny’s grandmaster strategy of intentionally causing danger on the track in order for his team member can proceed up the leaderboard. In all likelihood, any race would be shut down long before then.

That said, the movie’s elemental, almost naive, simplicity is key to its charm. It’s a self-mythologising tribute to melodramatic bloat, both in terms of the treatment of Formula One and of its star, Brad Pitt. When Sonny strolls into the pit lane to the clear admiration of his comrades, Kosinski shoots it with the air of a Western (Sonny is even called a cowboy at one stage). Cameos from Formula One figureheads Lewis Hamilton (who also produces), Max Verstappen and Lando Norris are shot with the portentous air of demi-gods in our midst, even if we’re short-changed on in-car footage presumably for budgetary or contractual reasons.

Everything is bold, brash and tailor-made for big-screen consumption, and Kosinski’s sage casting pays off with the contours and grooves of Pitt’s ageing face coming to resemble a race track on their own terms. The actor defies accusations of the dying movie star and has clearly grown into his own legend, assaying a rogue maverick who gives way to rueful self-doubt in a surprisingly affecting Las Vegas sequence.

Like so many sports movies, F1 emerges as a winning and stirring ode to teamwork. It’s Rocky with a race car. There’s an irresistible pull and charge to watching these skilled drivers and mechanics working together to beat the underdog odds, buoyed by Hans Zimmer’s meatily anthemic chords that mix the propulsion of Days of Thunder with the yearning romanticism of Interstellar.

Will the movie arrest Hollywood’s blockbuster conundrum? It’s hard to say, but it’s an easily digestible, often thrilling experience that zips past with the speed of a souped-up racer. It’s no Senna (arguably the greatest-ever film about Formula One) but a shiny chassis concealing a familiar yet reliable engine: we know where the power is coming from, but underestimate said power at one’s peril.