‘F1’ review: Brad Pitt racing film is sleek but frictionless

The young man in the row behind me in the 7am screening of F1 was having something like a religious experience. I could sense his enjoyment throughout, but in the film's final stretch, he started verbalizing it. “Duh-duh-duh,” he intoned in imitation of the score, “Hans Zimmer is peaking.” “That was close,” when Brad Pitt’s race car driver took a sharp corner. And when Pitt pulled away from the pack, his approving words were, simply: “He’s flying.” 

I thought of shushing him, but decided to hold my peace. I hate when people talk at the movies. But I love it when someone talks to a movie.   

With his incredibly successful 2022 Top Gun sequel, Joseph Kosinski offered a new kind of Hollywood tentpole. Maverick didn’t redraw, or even test, the boundaries of the form. What Kosinkski did manage, however, was to find and sustain a level of smooth, sleek performance denied to other films on this scale. That film was a machine in the best sense: all clean lines and balance and zero waste. Other blockbusters looked overstuffed and effortful in comparison.

F1 makes another case for Kosinski’s frictionless filmmaking—but also shows its limits. Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) was an up-and-coming Formula One driver before his career was derailed by a bad crash. Now a gambler and a driver-for-hire, he’s tracked down by Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), an old teammate who now owns the APXGP F1 team. With only nine races left and Ruben in danger of being fired after a string of poor results, Hayes is brought in as a driver despite the misgivings of technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) and star rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).

As Tobias Menzies’ weaselly board member points out, this seems less Hail Mary pass, more final nail in coffin (Kosinski’s films have many enviable qualities, but erudition isn’t one of them). And, for a while, Ruben’s move appears to backfire. Sonny frustrates the technical team—many of whom regard him, quite reasonably, as an old-timer without a resume—with his impulse decisions during races. His risk-taking style grates on the talented but linear-thinking Pearce, who’s yet to register a top 10 finish in his F1 career.

Maverick, too, had a grizzled veteran mentoring a cocky youngster. But where Mitchell has to rein in Bradshaw’s wildness to make him a better pilot, Hayes tries to instill in Pearce a capacity for risk. Weirdly, it doesn’t feel all that different. It isn’t just Kosinski’s oldie music choices that say he’s 51; you can see it in his reverence for a certain kind of world-weary hero, and the thinness of the younger characters, in his last two films. F1’s “kids these days don’t take their chances” feels as Boomer a sentiment as Maverick’s “kids these days need to respect the game”. 

Pearce is a paperweight, there to hold down a portion of the film but not affect it substantially. Idris doesn’t have the presence to draw attention away from Pitt, just like Miles Teller could never overshadow Tom Cruise. Tough loner cowboy fits Pitt a bit too snugly—we’ve seen all these grimaces and sighs before. He’s most relaxed in the scenes with Condon, who's wonderful as the no-bullshit director who can’t believe she’s falling for the roughneck who’s wrecking her cars. 

Shot by Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi), F1 looks sleek and streamlined. Zimmer’s score pulses thrillingly when the soundtrack isn’t tuned to the classic rock station. Kosinski does a great job selling Hayes’ split-second strategies, even to a racing non-enthusiast like myself. It’s breathless fun… and yet, I've a feeling the memory of this film will fade fast. Everything’s too right, too carefully curated. Kosinski might have his protagonist embrace risk, but he remains risk-averse himself. I found myself longing for some of the garishness of Days of Thunder and Rush, racing films with questionable taste but much more vitality than F1.  

The uncluttered, efficient look of F1 resembles, to my untrained eyes at least, regular race day programming. Fans might enjoy this imitation, an impression furthered through cameos by real-life drivers. But a film ought to feel like a film, not some Grand Prix or Drive To Survive on the big screen. F1 was made in collaboration with the FIA, the global governing body for motor sport. It’s hard not to feel the film was shortchanged: it got access to scenes that viewers see on a weekly basis for most of the year, while Formula One got a feature-length promo with a movie star.