A Well-Oiled Machine
Well… the word ‘formula’ is right there in the damn title.
F1
Director: Joseph Kosinski • Writer: Ehren Kruger
Starring: Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies
USA • 2hrs 36mins
Opens Hong Kong June 26 • IIA
Grade: B+
Word on the street is that Apple Studios has been muttering to itself about how if F1 tanks, the company with more money than God is going to pull back from theatrical releasing, which would be a shame. Because while everyone else was chickening out Apple at least had the patience (ego?) to keep trying, dropping pricey experiments like Killers of the Flower Moon and Napoleon in theatres. Was it bucking for awards glory? Maybe. Did they all work? No, but that’s not the point. They did all belong on a big screen. So does F1, where you’ll be able to feel the rumble and roar of million-dollar engines in your bladder and get the impression you’re surrounded by tires and motor oil.
F1 (in some quarters F1 the Movie) is a premium slab of glossy, big-budget Hollywood Industrial Complex filmmaking at its absolute finest and a prime example of why we fall for this stuff. I’m among the first the line up at the bitching table when yet another sequel/reboot/franchise spin-off lands in theatres, and it’s still boring and irritating. But when someone who really understands how to make formulae work for them and not against them, you get a hella good time. Classic texts are classics for a reason. It’s practically science. No matter where you go, T=bh/2. No matter where you go, Brad Pitt is a goddammed movie star, and he proves why as Sonny Hayes in the formulaic F1 – which is one of those movies that really, really gets the formula. Is it a giant Apple ad? Sure. Is it a massive, noisy ad for wider F1 exposure in IndyCar-heavy North America? Yes, yes it its. But it’s also a perfectly paced, well acted and amazingly entertaining if by-the-numbers redemption story with tremendous IMAX-worthy racing action. I don’t even like racing.
Put these two in everything
The action starts, first, with some pricey cock rock on the soundtrack (“Whole Lotta Love”), as veteran “never-was” driver Sonny finishes a race-for-hire at 24 Hours of Daytona, takes his cheque and moves along in the van he also lives out of. Sonny’s a legend but the years between the day he crashed out at an F1 race and now have been unremarkable. Let’s call this “x” in our formula. While he waits for the dryer at a laundromat, his old friend and APXGP – or Apex – F1 team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) finds him and tells him about his failing team and his need for just one win from the nine remaining races to keep it. He’s desperate to turn the team around. Let’s call this “y”. Sonny reluctantly (of course) accepts and shows up at the track, all cocky and swaggery, and immediately butts heads with talented rookie Apex driver Joshua Pearce, or JP (Damson Idris), just as cocky but without the hard won wisdom gained from experience. This is “∫”.
Alongside this underdog sports team holy trilogy are Apex’s genius technical director Kate (Kerry Condon), Sonny’s 20-years-younger love interest; principal Kaspar Smolinski (Kim Bodnia, The Witcher), who used to work for Ferrari as he’s fond of reminding anyone who’ll listen; board member Peter Banning (Tobias Menzies, so you know he’s a rat right away) lurking on the sidelines; and a ragtag (duh!) squad of mechanics, pit crew and engineers trying their very best to eke out a win. These are “(√ab)”. The characters are tossed into one of those lotto ball mixers with pissing contests, maverick rule-breaking, cornering drama, deep dark secrets, crashes, misplaced blame, second act break-ups and third act reconciliations, precision engineered for just the right moment for maximum impact. Oh, and racing. Lots of racing.
I suck at mathematics so I don’t know how x, y, ∫ and (√ab) go together but they somehow = great fun. Some credit goes to writer Ehren Kruger, who manipulated a similar formula for Top Gun: Maverick and struck gold. That said he also dropped the ball with the last three Transformers films and Ghost in the Shell, so have some salt grains. More credit goes to director Joseph Kosinski, who after Twisters it’s safe to say didn’t fluke out with Maverick (and maybe Tom Curise had less of a hand than we all assumed – fine I assumed) and who clearly knows his way around petrol-based action. F1 has it all over the recent, dead dull Gran Turismo, the clunky Taiwanese Nezha, even Michael Mann’s Ferrari, coming closest to the underrated Rush on the horsepower front. DOP Claudio Miranda (Life of Pi, Tron: Legacy, Maverick) restricts the frantic buzz and blinding speeds to the track and the pit, otherwise keeping images smooth and steady so we can get to know these people, even if we know where their stories end before we sit down.
That’s entirely down to the cast. Kruger doesn’t put much of an effort into fleshing out his archetypes, so the cast does it for him. Pitt anchors the whole thing with a level of charisma I still resent admitting to, leaning hard into his aw-shucks sophistication, bouncing off Bardem’s inherent European class with perfection; you’ll believe they’re old friends by 23 minutes in, and their dynamic makes a case for the two as a great buddy combo – right behind Bernthal and Affleck. The always awesome Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) makes Kate smart and driven, and only subject to Sonny’s charms because she chooses to be. For his part, Idris laces JP’s brand of youthful arrogance with subtle insecurities that give him depth and never make him a dick. Dicky, but not a dick. As if to prove just how much money Apple has, F1 was shot on locations in Monza, Silverstone, Zandvoort and Suzuka among others during actual races, and F1 heavyweights like Toto Wolff, Lewis Hamilton (also a producer), Max Verstappen, Sergio Pérez, Zak Brown, Lawrence and Lance Stroll, Yuki Tsunoda, Zhou Guanyu and about 866 others show up in cameos. F1 nerds are going to lose it. The rest of us can just enjoy the ride.