Reeder’s Movie Reviews: F1 the Movie

The summer season has arrived, with a bevy of blockbusters on the way. Even if you can readily imagine the finish line, F1 will keep you well entertained with mishaps and narrative detours along the way.

Brad Pitt heads the cast as Sonny Hayes, whose life behind the wheel has taken him from driving cabs in New York City to stock car racing and grappling with the turbo-charged vehicles on the prestigious international Formula One circuit. Ever since a spectacular, near-fatal accident decades earlier in an F1 race, Hayes has been on a continuous quest to restore his credibility and achieve a kind of redemption.

After a surprise win at Daytona, opportunity comes knocking in the person of Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), Sonny’s longtime friend and a former F1 driver himself. He owns the APXGP team, a team saddled with debt and embarrassed by its unreliable cars and lack of Top Ten finishes. It does have a promising young driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a rookie with dreams of glory and an excess of ego. Hayes and Pearce immediately begin jockeying for position within the organization.

Importantly, there’s another set of collaborators here: director Joseph Kosinski and his Top Gun: Maverick crew of producer Jerry Bruckheimer, screenwriter Ehren Kruger, cinematographer Claudio Miranda and composer Hans Zimmer. What they helped Tom Cruise achieve in the air, they help Brad Pitt accomplish here on the track.

Like Cruise, Pitt has recently turned 60. He deftly makes the aging process work for his character. Sonny betrays a boyish insouciance mixed with experience, regret and cynicism. It’s a performance suitably accented by a wealth of smirking, winking and wincing, with coy smiles and frequent furrowing of the brows. It’s a movie star turn calibrated for a big-budget commercial entertainment.

Bardem (an Academy Award winner for No Country for Old Men) delivers another solid, reliable performance, even if the part of Ruben hardly stretches his range. Idris, the British actor who excelled as a drug dealer in the television drama Snowfall, has a much less ominous role here. At first, Joshua resents Sonny’s intrusion, even as his mother (Sarah Niles, Ted Lasso) tries to counsel him to learn and mature. Besides, she likes Sonny’s looks.

So does the APXGP technical director Kate McKenna, as portrayed by Kerry Condon, an Oscar nominee for The Banshees of Inisherin. Her character actually reveals a paradox about the storytelling. No sooner do you meet her as a leading member of this predictably male-dominated team–the designated strong female presence in the cast–than you learn of her deficiencies as a designer. Her “boxes” fail to meet F1 standards for success, and much of her screen time involves refining Sonny’s ideas for improvements and tactics, while becoming his love interest. Still, she holds her own.

Joseph Kosinski knows how to direct and shape an action scene, and he knows how to take an audience on a thrill ride. With the blessing of Formula One’s governing association, he shot the film on location at a succession of iconic racing venues: Silverstone (England), Monza (Italy), Hungaroring (Hungary), Zandvoort (Netherlands), Suzuka (Japan), Monaco, Abu Dhabi and Las Vegas. Principal photography took place during the 2023 and 2024 seasons, which gives the movie that much more authenticity. Pitt and Idris drove F2 and F3 cars fitted out with F1 accessories. Apple, Sony and Panavision all provided specially adapted cameras and lenses to give the racing scenes an exciting, you-are-there intensity. Editor Stephen Mirrione, who earned an Academy Award for The Revenant, provides a kaleidoscopic mix of POV, panoramic and claustrophobic views, while maintaining the pulse and rhythm of the scenes. The pre-race driver prep revels in its intricacy; the pit stops dazzle in their choreography.

Seven-time F1 World Drivers Championship winner Lewis Hamilton, who served as a producer/consultant, makes cameo appearances, along with many other stars of the sport (Max Verstappen, Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc, for example). Oh, you’ll find plenty of other “appearances,” too, as in rampant product placement. When you have a budget of 250 million dollars-plus, every little bit helps.

F1 the Movie is a classic genre picture–the latest in a long series of films set in the world of auto racing. Matt Damon and Christian Bale drove the action in Ford v Ferrari (2019), which claimed Oscars for film and sound editing. So did Grand Prix (1966), which starred James Garner and Yves Montand, although it leaned more heavily into its romantic elements. Rush (2013), with Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl, is a well-oiled machine. Days of Thunder (1990), produced by Bruckheimer and featuring Tom Cruise in the lead role, ultimately veered too much off the track into shallow melodrama.

In this case, F1 the Movie is precisely calculated to please, from green light to checkered flag. It’s a vehicle for Brad Pitt. It’s an homage to the sound, speed, danger and glory of Formula One competition–a “ballet on wheels,” as one character puts it. It’s a film ideally suited for the IMAX format. It’s long (2:36), loud, immersive and consistently entertaining. Even if it doesn’t really seem to break any new ground–yes, you could describe it as “formulaic”–you should enjoy the ride.