Directed by Joseph Kosinski — Starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon and Javier Bardem
An aging race car driver returns to Formula One to help a struggling team, where he has to work alongside a young driver with something to prove.
I wasn’t really interested in seeing F1. It’s a movie about race cars, which isn’t really my thing. It’s almost three hours long, and it’s a story I’ve seen about a thousand times: the old, grizzled veteran and the young upstart start out as adversaries before learning to work together. And while I like a lot of movies starring Brad Pitt, I’ve never been someone who feels compelled to see a movie just because he’s in it.
Having said all that, this was pretty good.
F1 feels like an old-school ’90s movie-star vehicle, and we don’t get many of those anymore. Pitt has the charisma to carry a movie like this, and Damson Idris is a great counterpart. He’s got star quality of his own, and the chemistry between them works. Kerry Condon is particularly good as the team’s technical director. She’s a pro, has great presence, and holds her own opposite Pitt. The whole cast brings a lot of charisma to the movie, giving you plenty of people to root for.
It also looks fantastic. I don’t know much about racing, and I can’t say I’ve ever been particularly interested in watching cars go around a track. But this movie makes it exciting. The racing sequences have a real sense of speed and danger, and even someone like me can get caught up in what’s happening.
The story does pretty much everything you’d expect. The veteran and the rookie clash, they have to figure out how to work together, and the team has its own problems to overcome. There are a few surprises along the way, but the movie isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. It knows the kind of story it’s telling and delivers a satisfying version of it.
If F1 had come out in 1998, it probably would have been one of the biggest movies of the decade. It’s got the movie star, the big budget, the spectacle, the charismatic supporting cast, and a story that works for a broad audience. It feels like the kind of big, crowd-pleasing movie Hollywood used to make all the time.
The movie could probably have been shorter, but honestly, I didn’t really feel the runtime. For a nearly three-hour movie about a sport I wasn’t particularly interested in watching, that’s saying something.
I went into F1 with very little interest in seeing it, and came away having a pretty good time. Sometimes a familiar story, a charismatic cast, and a whole lot of spectacle are all you need.
Verdict: Good Time