Movie Review: F1: The Movie

Given the history of racing films, one may be apprehensive to accept the new entry to genre F1: The Movie as something worthy of legitimate praise. But, a strong performance from Brad Pitt and dynamic direction from Joseph Kosinski make the film a powerful addition to the genre that teeters on the precipice of greatness.

In the film, Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a race-car driver often referred to as “the greatest that never was.” Sonny began his career as one of Formula 1 racing’s most promising young drivers in the 1990s before an accident derailed him. Now, thirty years later, he is working various circuits as a sort of nomadic racer-for-hire when his former teammate, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), approaches him with an offer to join his Formula 1 team to help mold a young driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), into a champion. The offer proves to be too good to resist and Sonny finds himself on a literal road to redemption that he finds he must travel by repairing the damaged relationships of his past in order to move forward.

Director Joseph Kosinski, working from a script penned by himself and Ehren Kruger – the pair previously worked together on 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick – lets the drama unfold visually for the most part. The driving scenes are quite spectacular and are likely to be heralded for some time to come as a benchmark to be met by future films within the genre. But what is most gripping about the story is the way in which it works as a good old-fashioned tale of reclamation.

As Sonny, Pitt is charged shouldering most of the heavy lifting here and he does so in his typically likable fashion. He has moved into the dignified movie star persona almost effortlessly. Conversely, Damson Idris is able to simultaneously show character growth while still giving his character the cockiness and self-assuredness that makes him come off as more arrogant than actually talented.

Brad Pitt and Javier Bardem in “F1: The Movie.”

Those two are offset by Javier Bardem’s Ruben, who is desperately trying to keep his team afloat while reconnecting with his former racing partner, despite several misgivings. The team’s mechanic, Kate (Kerry Condon), serves as a sort of bridge for Sonny between the current world of Formula 1 and the one he had once been familiar with before his accident. All of the characters are given a sort of arc that allows them all a certain amount of growth via the redemptive nature of the overall story.

It is the kinetic editing provided by Stephen Mirrione along with Claudio Miranda’s cinematography that allows the film to breathe life into the racing scenes. These moments bring the film alive and add to the emotional weight that the characters are experiencing by making the audience participate in their ordeals.

While there may have been more powerful films about the sport of racing, there haven’t been many that were as complete a package as F1: The Movie proves to be. There is something heroic about Sonny’s journey that resonates from the beginning to the end of the film and Brad Pitt’s portrayal of that character only delivers more gravitas.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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