Brad Pitt stars as a veteran motor racing star who returns to F1 to help his friend save his team.
It’s fair to say Formula 1 is having something of a moment – especially in America and now Hollywood.
The popularity of Netflix’s behind-the-scenes documentary Drive to Survive and a heavy marketing blitz around the sport have won it a new, younger, transatlantic audience. F1 The Movie is very much the latest part of that campaign.
Like Barbie, it’s officially endorsed by the brand it depicts. F1’s owners are surely hoping Brad Pitt and Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski can do the same for race cars as Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig did for inanimate plastic dolls.
Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a washed-up ex-F1 driver who blew his chance at motorsport’s top level 30 years ago. Now content as a drifting racer for hire, he is found by former rival Ruben (Javier Bardem), who offers him a seat on his failing APXGP team in a desperate attempt to win a race and save his ownership.
Hayes’ arrival does not go down well with the team’s young star Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a social media-friendly upstart who is failing to make the most of his talent.
More amenable to Hayes’ charms is the team’s technical director, aerodynamics whizz Kate (Kerry Condon), as their shared single-mindedness in helping the team win sparks mutual admiration and maybe more.
The racing scenes are genuinely thrilling, with Kosinski utilising F1 chiefs’ cooperation to film alongside real cars on the track with similar results to Top Gun’s use of real-life fighter jets. We can feel the intensity and skill it takes to keep control of these highly-tuned machines, let alone make a risky overtake in the pouring rain.
For all the visual realism though, the plot devices used to build tension around Hayes and Pearce’s rise through the field will be ludicrous to anyone who has watched any recent F1.
Rules are broken at a rate that might result in a ban from any road, while the turnaround from being the absolute pits to contenders is fanciful to say the least in the sport’s modern age.
However, bolstering the impressive set-pieces are a cast who understand their popcorn movie assignment.
Pitt turns on his old charisma and convinces as a 50-ish maverick returning for one last go at the big time. In fact, with the likes of Lewis Hamilton driving on in his 40s, his character’s age is one of the more plausible plot points.
Condon gets a meatier role than that of a mere love interest as Kate’s emotional intelligence and skill are key to events. Meanwhile, Idris adds depth to his character that might otherwise have gone amiss.
The one misfire is the usually excellent Tobias Menzies playing APX board member Peter Banning, as he turns up the weaselly villainy straight away in a role that could have done with more ambiguity.
This is not a film that will win any awards for subtlety, and the heavy marketing sell does jar somewhat. But overall, F1 The Movie keeps us shifting along on the edge of our driving seat – which is not something Formula 1 has always done in recent years.
In cinemas from Wednesday 25th June.
By Mark Worgan.
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