F1 is a pretty good time. The cars go fast—vroom vroom, as they say in the business—everyone’s attractive and as I said earlier … the cars go fast.
Making a blockbuster doesn’t have to be rocket science, although this movie has a good deal of rocket-car science, and yet I found myself wanting a bit more from a middling script bolstered by phenomenal visuals and a rocking soundtrack1.
Yeah, yeah. I get it. This is a trope-y sports movie centered on the ol’ gunslinger and the young phenom (which is fine, play the hits!), but you would think a blockbuster with an estimated $300-million budget would have enough money for a script supervisor and a few people watching over, making sure that it’s not chock-full of clichés and relatively sexist character archetypes.
It was disappointing, to say the least, to see Kerry Condon’s technical director and Callie Cooke’s pit stop tire gunner, in particular, treated as if they were lucky-to-be-there fools who needed Brad Pitt’s tutelage and know-how to figure things out themselves. I thought we were past the bumbling blonde in the prototypical sports movie—well, I guess everything is regressing nowadays.
Motorsports journalist Chris Medland had a similar take in an interview for Vulture:
On a personal level, I thought some of the characters were a bit simple. This felt most obvious with the portrayal of women, especially in the sense that there was some mansplaining going on with Kate (Kerry Condon), the technical director. Sonny Hayes tells her, “Hey, look, your car’s not very good at the moment, but here’s how you make it better,” and then she finally makes a good car. And you’re like, Well, hang on, she’s meant to be this brilliant technical director who’s climbed her way to the top, but it takes Brad Pitt to tell her how to make a good car? F1 has a lot of brilliant women working in the sport, and I think they were trying to highlight that but in a way that actually belittled them, which surprised me.
Along with those subpar archetypes, this script could’ve benefited from a few more read-throughs. There were just too many unintentionally laughable lines and mediocre character notes holding everything back from something special. It’s still a better watch than a good portion of this year’s new movies, and yet, it’s tough to walk away without a little disappointment.
Although it doesn’t reach the heights of Joseph Kosinski’s Top Gun: Maverick, F1 hits similar highs when it’s showing you the process of how something works. Both F/A-18E/F Super Hornets and Formula One cars are insane machines that probably should be illegal for anyone to try to steer, let alone use in combat or race in the rain. Sidenote: I don’t know how they allow anyone to drive these cars through storms. How is that possible? I drove to Hudson a few weeks ago and kept my foot on the brakes during a light drizzle on the highway. People are nuts.
Kosinski has quickly become one of the best directors at big-budget action filmmaking, especially with vehicles involved, which is why this looks so damn good, particularly in IMAX. It took a “new camera system” for Kosinski and company to put this all together, and it shows. There are so many fast cuts from car to driver to fans to pit crew without it ever getting confusing or disconnected. I know next to nothing about cars, and I found myself thinking that certain teams were using the wrong tires or strategizing incorrectly. I’m sure I was wrong, but it was nice for a split second to think I knew anything about motor vehicles. I barely know how to pump gas2.
This is a pretty easy movie to recommend, especially compared to some of the stuff I watch, which would oftentimes get me ostracized for suggesting. F1 is a big, loud, death-defying action epic with a real behind-the-scenes look at an international world we rarely get to see in movies. Brad Pitt is chewing the scenery, Kerry Condon gets to be an exasperated Irish woman3 and Javier Bardem runs around in expensive clothes. It moves pretty fast and looks good doing so.
Which makes it such a bummer with how one-note some of the movie is, from the women on the periphery of the screen to the men reciting rote dialogue and doing their best to make something out of nothing.
Overall, good watch. I mean, it’s in the top third of new releases I’ve seen this year. It’s just tough to know that there’s a great movie hidden somewhere in there.
Blame New Jersey.