F1: The Movie - Review

Two years after filming began for an untitled Hollywood blockbuster based on modern-day Formula 1, it's finally time to see Brad Pitt play the role of an F1 driver at age 59. I can confirm that 'F1: The Movie' was well worth the wait.

 

This is a challenging review for a long-time F1 fan like myself to stay focussed on the movie aspects and not much of the technical BTS about the cars and filming that involved the crew's presence at various Grand Prix in the 2023 and 2024 seasons. But I shall give it my best shot.

 

Story and key characters

Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a former F1 driver who's always looking for the next big race to win. The movie starts with him as he takes over for a night stint in the 24 Hours of Daytona driving a Porsche 911 GT3 R and you are immediately thrown into the high-paced action of motorsports. It is quite the cinematic experience, enough to forgive the over-dramatisation of overtakes.

 

 

He is then approached by his former teammate and close friend, Ruben Cervantes, who currently owns a failing F1 team called APXGP (called Apex GP). He's two seasons in with no points and a contract that says the team gets sold if they don't have any wins in three seasons. Sounds like Haas much? Well, it so happens that with no experienced drivers willing to join, Ruben takes a gamble on the raw talent of Sonny to pair him with his rookie driver Joshua Pearce for the remainder of the season (nine races). Played by the hugely talented Javier Bardem, Ruben's character seems to be somewhat inspired by Zak Brown with his involvement and passion as a team owner. 

 

Joshua, played by Damson Idris, is another British driver with some parallels in his personal life to Sonny. However, the rookie is more interested in building his social profile and media recognition than being committed to driving well. His lack of experience means he's unable to give useful feedback to the team for developing the car, and he's not the smartest at racecraft either. Immediately nicknamed JP by Hayes, the young Brit is worried about his future in the sport and sees the veteran as a joke rather than a competitor or even a teammate.

 

Turns out the car is really bad, but Hayes comes up with a plan for a redesign - make the car faster through the corners and better at driving in turbulent air while chasing other cars on track. Well, the Technical Director is a female called Kate, the first woman to have this role in F1, played by Kerry Condon. So, you also get a somewhat pointless love interest brewing between Kate and Sonny.

 

The storyline shows them racing at Silverstone (UK), Monza (Italy), Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium), Vegas (USA) and Abu Dhabi (UAE) for the finale. There's also a brief inclusion of races at Suzuka (Japan), Hungaroring (Hungary), Mexico and Zandvoort (Netherlands). With each race, Sonny wins over the support of the crowd and team as they begin to score points every race. 

 

Since many of these scenes were shot over actual race weekends, we see cameos from the 2023 driver lineup as well as team principals like Zak Brown, Guenther Steiner, Lawrence Stroll, Frederic Vassuer and even Toto Wolff. 

 

There is also a big crash moment in the script that is inspired by Grosjean's fiery crash at the 2020 Bahrain GP and the F3 incident at Monza in 2019, to highlight the risks of the sport that exist even today. It also takes a dig at F1 team radio messages with Plan A, B, C, D, etc with Hayes coming up with Plan C which stands for chaos and combat.

 

Any more details about this movie's storyline would be spoilers.

 

Seems a bit too familiar

So, you've got a superbly talented racing veteran who can get to terms with a modern-day F1 car within one weekend and a promising rookie in need of a mentor. They have a limited amount of time to learn from each other and work together to succeed as a team and save the day. I'm smelling a strong scent of 'Top Gun: Maverick' and it's only after I finished watching 'F1: The Movie', I realised it was the work of the same director - Joseph Kosinski. 

 

The junior-senior relationship from enemies and rivals to mentor and teammates, the references to racing action as combat, the jogging and workout scenes, all these scenes reek of Top Gun.

 

Best & worst bits

The benefit of this ensemble is that 'F1: The Movie' is a cinematic treat (I'd recommend watching it in IMAX). With specially developed cameras based on technology used in Apple iPhones, we get some cool angles and perspectives, combined with the amazing prop cars out on the real F1 tracks. The sound production for this movie is just as important with all the engine sounds, background scores and the soundtrack.

 

Unfortunately, the storyline is the weakest part of the movie. It tries to cram notable moments of modern F1, adds a healthy splash of American gusto for the underdogs, and suffers from badly written cliche dialogues. There is good chemistry in the first half of the film between all these characters but gets more Hollywood, less F1, in the second half.

 

Final Take

This movie is not for fans of Formula 1, but it's the movie that Formula 1 needs. Like the Netflix series, 'Formula 1: Drive To Survive', it will draw in a lot of new viewers to the sport and has the burden to educate and entertain them in a relatively short amount of time. On those aspects, 'F1: The Movie' delivers in spades and is worthy of the ticket spend.

 

For fans of F1, there are more enjoyable movies out there. 'Rush' from 2013 is a far better F1 movie, a dramatic retelling of a real-life rivalry between Nikki Lauda and James Hunt in the 1970s. 'Grand Prix' from 1966 and 'Senna' from 2010 remain favourites of the racing genre for avid fans of the sport. 

 

All things considered, I rate 'F1: The Movie' 7 swans out of 10. Cheers!