Racing and Redemption in F1

Sometimes, just moments into a movie, you know: the movie is going to be great. 

F1 is one of those movies. 

Before the opening credits even start to appear, legendary producer Jerry Bruckheimer, screenwriter Ehren Kruger (Top Gun: Maverick, Transformers film series), director Joseph Kosinksi (Top Gun: Maverick, Tron: Legacy), and Apple Studios have crafted an intro that grips the viewing audience with the sights, sounds, hope, and anguish of automobile racing. 

The movie just gets better as it focuses on the choices each character makes and their consequences, driving the pace and engagement.

Breaking Through Sports Movie Tropes

F1 ostensibly follows a “fallen” world-class driver as he wrestles with demons haunting him from previous “near misses” and catastrophic wrecks on the race track. Of course, the only team willing to hire him is one so desperate that they would throw a Hail Mary, taking anyone with a sliver of a chance of bringing the team to a win. After half a season of not landing in the top ten, the investors are ready to bail, change personnel, and sell out. 

This is a common trope of sports films. However, producer Jerry Bruckheimer and the creative team that brings F1 to life on the big screen take familiar tropes and turn them into twists and turns that will keep audiences on the edge of their seats. 

Is Sonny Hayes, the older washed-up driver, car racing’s mysterious Man With No Name brought to the screen by Clint Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s genre-transforming Spaghetti Westerns? Maybe… but maybe not. 

Is the upstart front-facing racer for the team just racing’s Top Gun Maverick? Maybe, but it’s more complicated. 

Is this a buddy picture reminiscent of Lethal Weapon or the Bad Boys franchise? Yes, but the story carries a lot more depth and related story arcs.

Choices and Consequences Drive the Story

While all this character building might seem to slow F1 down—surely much to the chagrin of true racing fans—the movie flies through heart-pounding, knee-bouncing scenes of the races. While the interpersonal conflict and expectations fuel much of the tension in the screenplay, the real antagonist is the race (not even the race track). 

And this deft handling of story-driving conflict gives the characters the room they need to breathe and evolve. Even the minor players, like the wheel changer, have a meaningful transformation throughout the film.

In the end, F1 is a story framed by the choices each character makes at critical points in the unfolding drama of a floundering race team. But this tension never robs the characters, major or minor, of the dignity of their choices based on the personal trade-offs they make. 

F1 Stays True to Its Action Genre

F1 doesn’t move at a breakneck speed, although parts of it do. The movie is extraordinarily well paced, giving enough gas to the pedal to keep feet tapping and hearts racing, and then pulling off to let the story emerge to knit the pieces together.

Combined with nearly perfect casting, the movie effectively engages a broad audience. Brad Pitt is Sonny Hayes, the emotionally tortured “has been” that “never was.” Javier Bardem (Skyfall, Dune movie series, Being the Ricardos) is the race car company owner who sees Sonny’s remaining potential as a driver and teammate. Damson Idris (Outside the Wire, Astral, Megan Leavey) plays Joshua Pearce, the upstart young turk lacking the maturity to win at the highest level, the necessary foil to Hayes’s maturity. Add in Kerry Condon (Avengers film series, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, The Banshees of Inisherin) as Kate McKenna, a female chief car designer, and others, and the makings of a great movie become evident as the story unfolds.

Storied movie composer Hans Zimmer provides the sound that matches the mood and evolution of the movie’s tone and conflicts, from classic rock motifs to contemporary rap. 

But the art doesn’t stop with the casting. Kruger (the screenwriter) and Kosinski (the director) have taken each race car movie trope and turned enough of them on their head that the audience isn’t quite sure where it’s all going to land. Those twists, delivered by experienced actors (and a director) who know when responses need to be seen and not heard, make for a gripping film.

While F1 has a necessary villain, the character’s true motivations are not revealed until late in the movie, keeping the suspense as well as mystery alive until the final series of climactic events.

Overall, F1 is likely to be a contender for numerous major film awards in the fall. Brad Pitt is at his best, and the supporting players blend seamlessly in the film. The smart script keeps the action moving at a great clip even when the characters are not in their cars trying to avoid a fatal accident.