Brad Pitt stars in the fast-moving summer blockbuster F1, from the director to Top Gun Maverick. Here’s our review…
It’s not tricky to figure out how F1 The Movie came to be. Wisely sidestepping the shambles that was the official FIFA film a few years back, the procession of ideas that led us to F1 – right down to the official logo on the title card – feels it’s gone something like this:
‘Let’s work out a way to expand the brand reach of Formula 1! How about a film? Good idea. We could get IMAX cameras in for the races and make it look amazing! Oooh love it, but who will pay? I dunno, Apple is looking to spend hundreds of squillions of dollars on a blockbuster. We could get those Top Gun Maverick people in, and might be able to afford Brad Pitt! The corporate sponsors and product placement will come rolling in!’
Then the trivialities kick in. What about the plot? The characters? The story?
‘FFS, there’s always someone who talks this stuff down. We’ll fix all that in post or something.’
And so we arrive at the story of Brad Pitt’s apparently washed up racing driver, Sonny Hayes. We know from the off that he’s had a tough life, because there’s a barely-referred-to-again old photo on his sideboard. He has aged paperbacks on his shelves, he wears odd socks. Still, he drives a car fast – in a superb-looking sequence – and at a point of triumph, heads off to, er, the launderette.
I’ve never seen a laundrette on an IMAX screen before, and let me tell you, it really brings out the nuance of the machines.
The laundrette – apologies, I’ll get through the setup in a second – has a valuable plot role though, as here’s where Javier Bardem’s Ruben taps Brad up. Ruben, y’see, is having a sod of a time, stepping around product placement logos regularly to explain that his team – APXGP – is on the verge of going under.
He just needs to find a maverick driver, a loose cannon, a wildcard, who ideally will indulge in a) taking off his shirt, b) the occasional crafty shag and c) shithouse underdog tactics.
It takes a while to slide this into place, but soon we’re away.
If you’re unfamiliar with the rules of Formula 1 racing itself, and boy does the film assume you’re not, then just know each team requires two drivers, and the other in this case if Damson Idris’ Joshua Pearce. He’s a young hothead who finds himself paired with Brad Pitt’s sage old timer.
From there? Well, guess.
The two don’t get on, the team struggles, and by the way, here’s the logo for an air fryer company. People talk at each other in the magical language of Oxford English Explaining, throwing statements rather than dialogue at each other. The leads specifically, separately, both Idris and Pitt are eminently watchable, but in their scenes together, it’s like one of those animated movies where they’ve recorded the dialogue separately.
Of the supporting cast, Kerry Condon as team technical director Kate McKenna comes out the strongest, even keeping a straight face while one of the guys explains to her – as if she wouldn’t fecking know – that there’s never been a female technical director of a Formula 1 team before.
Subtlety, then, isn’t really what F1 is going for. Oftentimes, it also assumes we’re flat-out dim.
The standard formatting of a movie screenplay requires the use of the font Courier, at 12-point size. The dialogue given to the in-race commentators here may has well have been typed in 72-point Comic Sans. ‘Lap 20’ an enormous title card tells us. “That’s 20 laps down!” explains the commentator. A car gets into a collision. “Just when it couldn’t get any worse!”, they scream. Rules are explained, seemingly in triplicate. They’re bellowed at you, the assumption from Ehren Krueger’s screenplay that we’ve had frontal lobotomies on the way into the screening.
But it certainly glistens. The whole film gleams money. The Apple level of budget means there’s a moment where someone buys a pint in a British country pub, at British country pub prices, and leaves it undrunk. It feels too like there’s a procession of pop-up ads going on, as logo after logo appears in the background. We’re sold videogame companies, airlines, holiday destinations, web services, a drink from a fast food outlet, and more. The ads play in the background, while in the foreground, we’re constantly reminded – very much in a tell, not show style – just how difficult Formula 1 is.
And then, in spite of the colossal weight of factors pressing against the film, you get to the track.
Shot by Claudio Miranda, edited by Stephen Mirrione, the races themselves are legitimately spectacular. Kruger and director Joseph Kosinski – he of Top Gun Maverick – are wise enough to keep them coming too, papering over the cracks of godawful dialogue, further plugs for a low alcohol beer, and continual explaining.
Going back to what likely got this film approved in the first place, the fundamental idea of shooting cockpit-level Formula 1 action with a cinematic eye strikes absolute gold. Little else on the non-technical side does, save perhaps for Hans Zimmer’s score, but as much as I felt I was watching narratively tension-free races, boy did I enjoy watching them. Hands down brilliant.
The elephant in the metaphorical room here is 2019’s Le Mans ’66 though (or Ford V Ferrari in some parts of the world.) James Mangold’s more modest production might lack quite the level of impact on the race course (although it’s not far behind), but it laps F1 time and time again when it comes to character and story. The two aren’t even close. Brad Pitt’s character is called Sonny here, but he may has well be called Squeaky McDimples or Norbert Plinkington: he’s just being Brad Pitt. In fact, in spite of valiant work from the ensemble, there’s not a fleshed out character to be seen (oh how the film could use a Josh Lucas-esque figure.)
It’s a bit conflicting this review, then. It’s a while since I’ve watched a film that had such little confidence in its audience. But also, it’s a while since I’ve seen fast cars on a screen looking anywhere near as spectacular as this. Reduced to a smaller screen, that spectacle taken away, there’s not much here. Projected high and wide? It’s that old cliché: brain-off fun. Every criticism you can likely aim at it will stick a little, but it absolutely delivers on the main reason many will go to see it.
It’s just a shame it never gets more ambitious than the first line of its pitch though. What Le Mans ’66 understood is that the best sports films are not about sports. Here? Well, F1 is actually about sports. And for this and other reasons, it’s not one of the best sports films.
It does look and sound bloody good, though. And if you’re going for it, it’s absolutely not a film to be watched on a phone…
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