Let me begin by saying I’m not going to begrudge anyone fully embracing the Vroom Vroom of F1: The Movie for the simple fact that the car-racing sequences are one of the only things this movie has going for it—in the same way director Joseph Kosinski’s previous film, Top Gun: Maverick, had its aerial sequences as its strongest element.
And much like Maverick and another Kosinski film, Tron: Legacy, F1 is about a past-his-prime alpha male returning to the thing that made him great and showing the young guys how it’s done! Working again with Maverick writer Ehren Kruger (who also wrote most of the Transformers films, as well as Arlington Road and The Ring), Kosinski’s mission is to throw us neck deep into this world, including the physicality and sounds of Formula 1 racing—which he does with mixed results.
Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is a driver now in his 50s, considered by many to be the greatest Formula 1 racer who never actually won a title. After an accident on the track that nearly killed him back in the 1990s, he left the sport and has been a racer for hire ever since. When we meet him in the present day, he’s just won a NASCAR race, after which he simply walks away, having accomplished what he was hired to do. He’s approached by a former F1 teammate, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who now owns a Formula 1 team that can’t seem to win (or even finish) a race, meaning he’s on the verge of losing the team completely and falling hundreds of million of dollars into debt. He wants Sonny to not only be one of his two racers, but also mentor the other driver, a rising star in the sport and resident hothead, Joshua Pearce (Damon Idris), who resents having to drive alongside an “old man." So naturally, the two butt heads and even bumpers occasionally.
Another key member of the team is the chief engineer and car designer, Kate (Kerry Condon), who sees the value in Sonny’s contribution to the team. The two work on bettering the car while Sonny attempts to somehow convince Pearce how to change up his driving style so that at least one of them can win a damn race and move up in the rankings over the course of a season. And for a time, this oddball team actually does start to improve thanks to a combination of Sonny’s old-school routines and racing style combined with Pearce’s youthful spirit. And all of this takes place in a very insular, small universe where no other cars or racers or pit crews exist outside of this merry band of brothers and sisters.
If the filmmakers wanted us to feel immersed in this world, why not immerse us in the entire world? In real life, these teams and drivers all know each other and socialize to a certain degree, but there’s none of that here. As a result, this globe-hopping, expansive Formula 1 world feels like it doesn’t take place in the real world. We get glimpses of Pearce’s home life, visiting with his spirited mother, and we get a sense of the traumatic event that changed the course of Sonny’s life, something he’s still dealing with 30-some years later.
There is potential here for some excellent storytelling, but most of it is squandered in favor of more traditional and painfully obvious choices, including the most infuriating one: making Pitt and Condon’s characters start to fall for each other. Would it have been so terrible to let the only major female character in this movie not get all googly-eyed for Brad Pitt? Apparently, her brains couldn’t talk her heart out of what it wants.
I supposed F1 could be looked at as a redemption story, but in all honestly, Sonny wasn’t doing all that bad before coming back to Formula 1 racing. He was winning NASCAR and other league races, making money, and not being constantly reminded of his biggest failure. There’s a subplot in which one of the team’s primary investors (Tobias Menzies) tries to entice Sonny to hold back so that he can buy the team away from Ruben, and we never believe for a second that Sonny would consider doing that. So why include it?
And if I’m being totally honest, this might be one of the single worst performances I’ve ever seen Brad Pitt give. I don’t care how much he trained and how many of these sequences actually feature him behind the wheel, it doesn't feel like his heart is in this story. As I said, the racing scenes are well done, both in terms of pure high-energy entertainment and as far as showing us racing strategy in a way that’s understandable, even on the fly. I just wish these characters had something more to give us, other than just spinning around in circles.
The film is now playing in theaters.
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