‘Hope is not a strategy. Create your own breaks…’
Of all the sports regularly utilised at the movies, F1 is probably the one with the biggest disparity between how entertaining the films are and how boring the sport is. No shade to any F1 fans out there, but that shit is dull as dishwater. And yet, Rush, Ford vs Ferrari, even Days of Thunder – these are wildly entertaining movies. F1 is the latest film to highlight this disparity and it also confirms that director Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick, Twisters) is becoming the king of the blockbuster…
Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is a nomadic former F1 driver who is coaxed out of retirement for one last job by Rubén Cervantes (Javier Bardem), the owner of racing team APXGP, and an old friend. Upon arrival, Hayes clashes with hotshot rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), but finds an ally in APXGP technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon).
Brad Pitt has reached that elder statesman part of his career where his sheer presence is enough to spark an interest. As he is selective with the roles he chooses, every new Pitt venture feels like an event. In Kosinski, Pitt has found the perfect director to highlight his strengths. Namely, looking beautiful and being the coolest guy in the room. While Ehren Kruger’s screenplay leans into well-worn tropes (I’ve already used the phrases ‘one last job’ and ‘hotshot rookie’ in this very review), he also subverts expectations enough to keep things interesting. Sonny Hayes is not infallible. On several occasions, he makes mistakes on and off the track (although many of them are ingeniously and hilariously revealed to be deliberate), and this more nuanced approach serves the movie wonderfully. Elsewhere, Bardem captures the wide-eyed naivety required for anyone financing a hopeless dream, Idris shares an authentic and abrasive chemistry with Pitt, and Condon, excellent throughout, provides a much needed feminine touch in what is an otherwise testerone filled movie (she also seems utterly delighted to spend so much time serving as Pitt’s love interest – who can blame her?).
Unsurprisingly, for the man who delivered the minor miracle that was Top Gun: Maverick to the world, the racing scenes here are genuinely spectacular. I don’t know (or care) if they are technically accurate, but in terms of spectacle, everything here looks amazing. It’s no mean feat to take a sport as repetitive and monotonous as F1 and make it interesting, but Kosinski and his talented cast pull it off in spades. Add in Hans Zimmer’s bone-shaking score, and you are left with a film that isn’t quite in the upper echelon of sports movies, but is certainly knocking on the door.
A Best Picture nomination is perhaps a little too generous, and it’s troubling that we are still relying on Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt to sell movie tickets, but F1, given the subject matter and fairly derivative plot, is about as good as it could be – a success.
