The average Formula One vehicle averages about 130 mph, though with the right person behind the wheel, you can push it up to 250 mph. (Don’t try this at home, kids.) You also need a great piece of machinery, of course, and a professional crew making sure that everything runs smoothly and efficiently. It takes a virtual village to dominate the circuit. But the difference between a competition-level team and a championship one often comes down to who is sitting in the cockpit.
“Do we have the car?” someone asks late in F1, the Formula One drama that hopes to both sell the motorsport to those who don’t know a McClaren from a McRib and ride in the wake of this globally popular, billion-dollar phenomenon. “WE HAVE THE DRIVER!” intones Javier Bardem, with a solemnity that would make Moses put down the 10 commandments and break into a slow clap. We’ll second the Oscar-winner’s assertion. A tale of a veteran taking one last shot at the checkered flag, a hotheaded youngster in need of a mentor, and an underdog team gunning for glory via a sports-film narrative that couldn’t be more formulaic — please tip your waiters! — this throwback to old-school blockbusters is indeed a well-oiled, finely tuned operation. Most importantly, however, is that it definitely has the driver. Never mind the horse power. The fuel running this sleek, aerodynamic speedster of a movie is 100-percent pure star power.
They call him Mr. Pitt — and even before you officially meet the man-above-the-title’s character Sonny Hayes, a.k.a. “the best that never was,” you can feel the movie setting him up as a misfit legend rebel genius. Serene images of nature are interspersed with en media race footage, cars whizzing and whooshing around a first-person POV. This is what plays in Hayes’ head before he exits the sacred space that is the van he lives in, and starts his slow trek to the track for a race. In this case, the event happens to be the 24 Hours of Daytona, which officially kicks off the racing season. He gets into car, runs his section his way, and thanks to Hayes’ lead, the team walks away with the trophy. (Our hero won’t touch the cup, however — he claims it’s bad luck.) The fact that he manages all this in the time it takes to play Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” only makes it, y’know, a 100 times cooler. Then Sonny walks away, “one and done,” ready to head whichever way the wind will blow him next. The off-road Baja 500 is coming up. Maybe he can nab a spot there.
But who should walk into the Orlando laundromat that Hayes is killing time in than his old friend, Ruben (Bardem). Once upon a time, these two were fellow up-and-coming drivers, each pole-positioned to become Formula One’s Next Big Thing. Then Hayes was involved in an accident during a big race against Ayrton Senna, and proceeded to spend the next 30 years drifting into obscurity. Ruben, meanwhile, has become the owner of APXGP, an F1 team languishing comfortably in perpetual last place. He’s now 350 million in the hole, and about to lose the team. Someone needs to help them turn things around. Why not Sonny? The answer is a solid no. Until it isn’t, and Hayes shows up at the team’s practice track, sauntering in like he’s already won.
Because he already has — when you’re a hot shot played by Brad Pitt, strolling through a film that has beautifully set you up to be the human equivalent of a racecar running on all cylinders yet blissfully defiant of anything resembling “the rules,” it’s all over but the checkered-flag waving, right? Well, not quite. Hayes still has to win over Joshua Pearce (Snowfall‘s Damson Idris, leveling up in a massive way), the rookie who’s got the right stuff but has to learn the ropes, etc.; he’s wary of this dinosaur coming in and potentially stealing his thunder. The same goes for Kasper (Kim Bodnia), the Danish group principal, and Kate (Kerry Condon), the Irish technical director, neither of whom trust this geriatric newbie to pull off a miracle. We should note that, starting with a press conference announcing Hayes as the newest addition to APXGP, everyone from journalists to Pearce’s mom (Sarah Niles) and manager (Samson Kayo) begin making cracks about Sonny’s age. Shortly thereafter, F1 has the star dipping himself shirtless into an ice bath, as if to say: Yeah, the dude’s old, but he’s like Hot Sixtysomething Brad Pitt old.
Hayes has also got to learn that Formula One is a team sport, not an individual one, even if you take into account that whole thing we said above about the MVP driver being the only one that matters. He will need to balance humility with experience and talent; understand that even his undeniably brilliant, eccentric tactical actions have IRL consequences; and battle not just professional setbacks but those pesky personal demons. No matter how “meetings” involving downing shots and impromptu poker games between Sonny and Joshua are co-ordinated by their peacemaking technical director, the trust between these two aces must be earned one lap at a time. If you believe that the flirty, flinty banter between Sonny and Kate earmarks the latter as Sassy Irish Romantic Interest — thankfully, Condon is way too graceful and instinctual an actor to let her character devolve into a stereotype — then you should trust your gut. (She comes off much better than the female crew member who keeps conspicuously fucking things up early on, and seemingly exists just to highlight Hayes’ emotional largesse when she eventually becomes invaluable.) If you think that Tobias Menzies’ corporate gladhander immediately gives off Big Judas Energy, congratulations: You know how movies work.
Former engineer-turned-filmmaker Joseph Kosinski knows how to make all of this work — he was the director responsible for Top Gun: Maverick, another gigantic epic that revolved around a major star, a lot of spectacle, the star as a spectacle unto themselves, and a need for speed. And like that industry-saving hit, this is a project that pushes the idea of collective effort in the forefront, yet still gleefully sells the idea that only a single superior, protocol-ignoring human being can get the job done. They practically feel like companion pieces. Kosinski could have called this Form’ One: Maverick and no one would have blinked.
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And like that Tom Cruise sequel, F1 plays up the fact that authenticity, verisimilitude and a you-are-there-feeling can often make the difference between a fun afternoon at the moving pictures and an immersive adrenaline rush. The marketing has been playing up the fact that the production embedded itself within the actual Formula One circuit for a season, the Pitt crew intermingled with actual pit crews, the actors are actually driving in a number of scenes, and a gaggle of real-life Formula One personalities lend their presences in the name of making this feel realer than real. It helps to get Lewis Hamilton to play Lewis Hamilton — yes, the “Through goes Hamilton!” moment is recreated here, complete with hyperventilating commentary — especially when you’ve brought on Lewis Hamilton as a producer. Kosinski and Maverick cinematographer Claudio Miranda also pulls out the technical stops, utilizing bleeding-edge cameras and continually busting out a swerving pan that seamlessly swings from driver’s viewpoint to side profile, which somehow manages to feel awe-inspiring after the 100th use. Most of us had never flown a Boeing Super Hornet, and most of will never take a customized F1 car for a spin in Abu Dhabi. The gamble is that such first-rate second-hand thrills will make up for a 250mph ride through extremely familiar terrain.
It does, for the most part, and certainly helps distinguish F1 from becoming nothing but this generation’s Days of Thunder. Both films are courtesy of super-producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s ability to sell the public what they want, only louder, faster and soundtracked by NASCAR-dad–friendly jock jams. His touch is evident throughout, though that’s not what makes this feel like such a giddy throwback. It’s the way that what’s clearly designed as a star vehicle knows that the emphasis is on “star.”
A-listers are still being minted in the 21st century, but few can truly carry a picture of this scope and magnitude and not play second fiddle to the sound and fury. The way that Pitt injects his presence, his physicality, his charm, his well-honed screen persona, his particular mix of discipline and DGAF effortlessness, and his backhanded way of making outdated, Golden Age Hollywood roguishness feel completely somehow timeless is what makes this a winner. He even manages to upstage the cars. It’s a turn that reminds you of Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Burt Lancaster, William Holden, and, notably Steve McQueen, no stranger to movies about racing. (It can’t be a coincidence that one of Hayes’ Zen-like pastimes is throwing a ball against a wall like McQueen in The Great Escape.) F1 couldn’t feel more contemporary in its focus over a sport that’s the current obsession of millions, yet couldn’t feel more like a flashback to a bygone age where a larger-than-life movie star was the only necessary I.P. This is what blockbusters used to look like. Come for the most impressive, lustrous car that a gajillion-dollar budget can buy. The reason to stay, however, is the driver.
From Rolling Stone US
