Movie Review: ‘F1: The Movie’ Can’t Quite Stick the Landing

Director: Joseph Kosinksi
Writer: Joseph Kosinski, Ehren Kruger
Stars: Brad Pitt, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem

Synopsis: A Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team up with a younger driver.

The new Brad Pitt summer tentpole vehicle F1®: The Movie follows the classic tradition of proving you can’t teach an old dog new tricks—but you can teach a pack of puppies a few new ones. It’s a film that’s big, flashy, and, for the first ninety minutes or so, a genuinely engrossing piece of gluttonous popcorn entertainment that is as American as, well, a bucket of buttery popcorn. 

However, as Pitt’s cinematic skid mark loses control, where even Jesus cannot take the wheel, into its final turn, F1®: The Movie becomes self-indulgent and even arrogant, unsure of when to walk away. It ultimately lets the big climactic moment it builds toward slip through its fingers despite its old-fashioned Hollywood trappings. 

The story follows the aging and weathered (and, of course, still breathtakingly handsome) Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a former Formula One driver who hasn’t raced in the league in nearly thirty years. We first meet Sonny during the 24 Hours of Daytona, where he’s racing for Chip Hart (Shea Whigham), the scrappy principal of a ragtag team.

Hayes brings his menacing, wrecking-ball style to the track, taking out a rival driver to help his team regain the lead. After earning a quick five grand for his trouble, Sonny retires to a pinball machine in a laundromat—until an old friend shows up.

That friend is Ruben (Dune’s Javier Bardem), a fellow veteran of the racing circuit who now owns his own Formula One team. Unfortunately, Ruben is $350 million in the hole, and the board is ready to replace him—unless he can shake things up and consistently finish in the top ten. He convinces Sonny to come out of retirement, not only to lead the team as its head driver but also to mentor a hotshot young prodigy, Joshua “Noah” Pearce (The Commuter’s Damson Idris)—a driver in whom Ruben sees shades of Sonny himself.

F1®: The Movie is directed by Joseph Kosinski (Only the Brave), who has been riding the high of Tom Cruise’s “saving cinema” with Top Gun: Maverick. At first, we’re swept up in the film’s breakneck pace and immersive style, which puts the audience right inside the helmet of Pitt’s Hayes. 

He comes across as the William James of racing—someone who not only endangers everyone around him but also demands they treat the sport like combat. Pitt delivers a magnetic, even visceral performance that’s deeply felt.

However, the rest of the characters are two-dimensional, with the villain telegraphed from the start. Damson Idris is fine, but his character is a cliché—used primarily to humanize Pitt’s Sonny, giving him redeemable value by mentoring Pearce to be a leader, even though he doesn’t behave like one. It’s the old trope of leadership being thrust upon the reluctant hero.

The script by Ehren Kruger—who also wrote Top Gun: Maverick and has a history with Reindeer Games, The Ring films, and Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise—suggests his Academy Award nomination may have been an outlier. You learn almost nothing about Formula One racing, not even during scenes focused on Kerry Condon’s character, Kate McKenna, a technical director and former aerospace engineer explaining changes to the cars.

Worse, there seems to be no clear logic to what the team must accomplish to save Ruben’s job, leaving the stakes muddled and convoluted. The film is also overstuffed with exposition—not just from the characters, but from the overhead announcers, who commit racing’s cardinal sin: constantly “mouth-vomiting” exposition in a desperate attempt to explain the sport’s mantra and throw out red herrings. It quickly becomes laughable—and more than a little grating.

To make matters worse, Kosinski lets the big moment slip away the movie is building towards. The final race, especially in IMAX, gives the audience a sense of flying that is immersive and, for some reason, cuts away from some trivial scenes that take away from a moment where F1 finds footing in cinematic wonderment. Along with an overabundance of goodbyes where the movie refuses to end, F1®: The Movie squanders an exhilarating premise, by overstaying its welcome. 

You can watch F1® THE MOVIE only in theaters on June 27th!

Grade: C