F1 The Movie: Thrilling, Sexy… and Approved by the Sport’s Governing Body

By Kim Hughes

Rating: A

“Sorta predictable but yowza entertaining” was the phrase that kept rattling around my refined movie critic head watching F1: The Movie, which seems poised to be the summer’s chief blockbuster and not only because it boasts a who’s who cast and crew that have made lots of movies you’ve definitely heard of.

Arriving with buy-in from the sport’s overlords at the FIA and co-produced and overseen by real-life F1 champ Lewis Hamilton — who is namechecked in a crucial racing scene and who appears, not really discernibly, in the film alongside all 10 Formula One teams and their drivers from the 2023 season — F1: The Movie aims to satisfy all comers.

For mainstream viewers — and let’s be frank, for the ladies — there’s Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, and Damson Idris, all projected in glorious, stubble-enhancing IMAX, and there’s a dishy romantic subplot involving one of them.

For racing nerds, there’s trivia aplenty, both accurate and notably not. For example, according to NBC News, on Hamilton’s advice, Sky Sports commentators David Croft and Martin Brundle, the voices of F1 for British and American fans, are cast as the announcers in the movie. Conversely, NBC notes, “Pitt’s F1 car in the movie, clearly slimmer than the real F1 cars he’s racing, is a Formula 2 car.”

Plus, a struggling F1 team like APXGP, the fictional one at the centre of F1: The Movie, probably wouldn’t shell out whatever it costs these days to use original versions of Led Zeppelin and Queen classics for background colour.

But whatever. That’s cocktail party fodder. F1: The Movie is genuinely thrilling from start to end, and that’s all anyone seeking a movie in late June really needs to know. Audiences feel like they’re inside the cars as those highly skilled drivers tear around tracks in Japan, Mexico, Vegas and beyond.

Heck, even the pitstops are exhilarating as balletic crews descend on vehicles to change tires with seemingly superhuman speed.

The storyline is more prosaic, but not gratingly so. Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a onetime Formula One champ and card-carrying daredevil whose career was sidelined by a crash in the early 90s. Now a drifter and driver-for-hire who lives in his van, Hayes is approached by his former teammate, now team owner Ruben Cervantes (Bardem).

Ruben’s APXGP team is in the toilet, but they have a star-in-the-making with Joshua Pearce (Idris). Ruben convinces Sonny to join the team, which is strong but somewhat unfocused and beleaguered by suboptimal cars, to help turn things around.

Of course, Pearce is unimpressed with an older driver being parachuted in as his teammate. Much of the film’s first third follows Pitt’s wisdom being arrogantly batted away by his younger cohort until disregard of same nearly costs him his life.

There’s a subplot involving a nefarious actor who doesn’t really want APXGP to improve, and lots of snappy dialog, especially from Pitt and Kerry Condon as Kate McKenna, APXGP’s whip-smart technical director and the first-ever woman to hold the job.

But myriad, very real-looking races (and those killer pitstops!) are the draw, and there’s plenty of those, some involving fiery crashes and all happening in exotic locations as the teams work the circuit toward the Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi. It’s worth noting that Pitt spent months training to drive with Hamilton as his coach.

Director Joseph Kosinski is on familiar turf here. See Top Gun: Maverick with its similarly aging but inimitable and relatable lead (kicked down by life, yo) gifting hard-won smarts to ungrateful upstarts as the rarified thrills relentlessly unfold.

With cinematography by Kosinski go-to guy Claudio Miranda, editing by Steven Soderbergh go-to guy Stephen Mirrione, and music by everyone’s go-to guy Hans Zimmer — all Oscar winners — F1: The Movie has an unimpeachable cinematic pedigree that might elevate it beyond popcorn status at awards season.

A cynic could note, as NBC News and others have, that a significant part of the film’s raison d’etre is to capitalize on and boost the growing interest in F1 racing in the U.S., making it, at a reported $300 million, arguably the world’s most expensive advertisement.

Reminiscent of popular 90s-era fast food marketing crossovers (film merch cups at Taco Bell!), there is also a LEGO F1 lineup of products — “keeping the excitement alive at home by building their own F1-inspired moments with LEGO sets designed for every age and skill level,” so the pitch goes. Sigh.

Digressive, sure, but hot damn the film is fun, its 155-minute running time as slick as the track at Monza in a rainstorm. And just in time for summer.

F1: The Movie. Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Starring Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Damson Idris and Kerry Condon. In theatres June 27.