F1 dares you to dislike its characters or the film itself. There is no shortage of charmers or crowd-pleasing moments in the movie based on the Formula One World Championship and steered with verve and heart by Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski.
Brad Pitt is at the head of the queue, a hot-cool dude who makes race car driving look as easy as a buggy ride on a beach. Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, who might have up there with Ayrton Senna if he hadn’t been in a near-fatal crash. Sonny is now following the “It’s not about the money” principle, content to pick up modest pay cheques at minor events.
When Sonny is approached to join a team owned by his friend Ruben, he cannot refuse. One reason is that Sonny’s Zen exterior conceals a repressed desire to win at Formula One. The bigger reason is surely Ruben, who is played by Javier Barden with scene-stealing warmth.
The list of irresistibles includes talented British actor Damson Idris as Joshua, who is the star of Ruben’s team but lacks the headline-grabbing wins that will put him in the big league. There are times when Sonny and Joshua find themselves in direct contest with each other, rather than with their rivals. Sonny’s experience and at-times maddening sangfroid clashes with Joshua’s youthful impulsiveness.
F1 isn’t even trying to reinvent the wheel in terms of its plotting. Ehren Kruger’s screenplay faithfully follows the arc of the average redemption-oriented sports movie. What Kruger does well is to write solid scenes for well-rounded characters who have a palpable passion for racing. The dialogue is banal, but the emotion associated with the sport hits home.
Ruben’s team includes a lovely Kerry Condon as Kate, who has a hard time deflecting Sonny’s mega-watt charisma. Kim Bodnia engagingly plays an overwrought team member. Sarah Niles is Joshua’s formidable mother, who remarks on Sonny’s handsomeness in one scene and threatens to have him hospitalised in the next.
The film’s clear preference for Sonny over Joshua does result in Joshua being relegated to second place. You don’t know what it has taken me to reach here, Joshua, a Black Briton, tells the white-and-blonde American Sonny. We never do find out.
FI is race-blind but always alert to the particular thrills of racing. The fabulously filmed contests have been shot at actual championships. Lewis Hamilton, among the movie’s producers, turns up in a cameo alongside other Formula One luminaries.
Stephen Mirrione’s excellent editing creates seamless transitions between the pulsating races and the rivalry between the experienced Sonny and the brash Joshua. In several ways, F1 is a horizontal Top Gun, taking place on the ground rather than the sky, with a laidback hero who is the polar opposite of Tom Cruise’s antsy Maverick.
Brad Pitt’s camera-friendliness and hippy demeanour sets the film’s overall vibe of casualness and all-round goodwill. Peter (Tobias Menezes), an investor in Ruben’s team, is the closest F1 gets to a villain. Peter’s scheming is a clumsy element in a movie out to recreate the pleasures of a hugely popular, turbocharged sport.
