Just as Tony Scott segued from the unforgettable Top Gun skies to the middling Days of Thunder racetrack, Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski transitions from Tom Cruise aerial heroics to Brad Pitt speedway action with F1. It’s a Formula One extravaganza, hitting theaters June 27, that, like the filmmaker’s superior prior outing, concerns a seemingly over-the-hill icon returning for one last chance at manly glory.
Elevated by its magnetic lead and nerve-rattling vehicular set pieces shot at various real-world circuit events, it’s an old-school Jerry Bruckheimer-produced spectacular, albeit one that never deviates from a familiar summer blockbuster course and, consequently, fails to truly kick into adrenalized overdrive.
Written by Maverick’s Ehren Kruger, F1 is a showcase for Kosinski’s crisp, sleek, propulsive direction and for Pitt’s mega-watt charm, both of which are on full display throughout this 155-minute tale of underdog triumph and redemption.
Pitt is Sonny Hayes, less a “has-been” than a “never was” due to the fact that his promising Formula One career fizzled out before it began courtesy of a 1993 crash at a Spain event that sent his life into a tailspin.
Kosinski’s film locates Sonny proving that he still has something left in the tank at Daytona, where he’s daringly victorious. In the aftermath of that win—the latest stop in a life that’s taken him to every car-related gig on the planet, including NYC as a taxi driver—he’s visited by old racing mate Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), who’s now the owner of a losing Formula One squad named Apex Grand Prix (APXGP) that’s about to go under if it doesn’t pull out a win in the back half of the ongoing season.
Living out of a van and washing his clothes at local laundromats, Sonny hardly resembles an athletic savior, but Ruben convinces him to get back behind a Formula One wheel as one half of an APXGP team that’s led by Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a rookie phenom who, at outset, is as interested in media appearances and social media engagement as he is in finishing first.
Joshua naturally bristles at the arrival of over-the-hill Sonny, and their initial combativeness threatens to undermine their partnership before it begins. Attempting to bring these two disparate individuals together is not only Ruben but also team principal Kaspar Molinski (Kim Bodnia) and technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), the latter of whom is the first woman to hold such a position, and whose current car design is roundly decried as a “shitbox” and blamed for the outfit’s habitually poor performances.
There’s no surprise as to where F1 is headed, as popular golden boy Joshua (who trains with modern tech) and archaic rebel Sonny (who prefers jogging outside and flicking playing cards to keep himself sharp) butt heads both on and off the track, not least because Sonny is a wild card who refuses to play it safe, believing that one makes their own big breaks.
For all his recklessness, however, there’s a method to Sonny’s madness, and the wily veteran is soon pulling all sorts of crafty, unconventional stunts in competition to gain an advantage for himself and Joshua, all as he pushes his underling to grow up and seize his shot at greatness. Much head-shaking from his compatriots and superiors ensues, at least until APXGP’s fortunes turn around, at which point everyone comes to value, for a time, Sonny’s do-or-die ethos.
While Sonny is more than happy to break the rules, Kruger’s script sticks to a hackneyed narrative template through thick and thin, igniting sparks between Sonny and Kate as well as erecting various obstacles in its protagonists’ path which are overcome in the most predictable of fashions. F1 hits its beats proficiently and yet fails to generate drama in both its moment-to-moment incidents and its overarching story.
Unlike Top Gun: Maverick, its showstopping sequences are expertly staged but lack actual suspense, and though much of this is due to the film’s focus on opaque Formula One rules and strategies, it’s additionally the byproduct of Kruger and Kosinski caring more about you-are-there authenticity than storytelling innovation.
From digital race simulators and advanced car-development systems to blistering international Grand Prix footage in which cinematographer Claudio Miranda’s camera sets up shop inside the vehicle’s tight cabin to stare at the driver or assume their POV, F1’s depiction of Formula One racing is highly detailed, realistic, and muscular.
Moreover, Hans Zimmer’s hard-charging score contributes to a pedal-to-the-metal atmosphere that keeps the material lively. The proceedings’ immersive immediacy compensates for some of its plot shortcomings, and so too does a sturdy cast highlighted by Condon as the tough and resilient Kate, Idris as the hotheaded and insecure Joshua, Bardem as the dice-rolling Ruben, and Tobias Menzies as shady APXGP board member Peter Banning.
Still, F1 is a primarily Pitt’s show, and he delivers a bona fide A-list turn as Sonny, a cocky renegade who’s also diligently dedicated to his craft and motivated not by money but by a quest to recapture that fleeting feeling of being so in control of himself and his vehicle that the world goes tranquil and it seems like he’s “flying.”
A leader renowned for always making his comrades better—a fact espoused by Shea Whigham, a character actor who knows a thing or two about always making movies better—he’s an adventurous iconoclast determined to attain that which he lost decades earlier. Pitt embodies Sonny, a “dangerous” nonconformist and romantic purist, with such self-possessed poise and cool that it’s easy to get swept up in the character’s take-it-to-the-limit pursuit of the top spot. No matter the film’s creakier twists and turns, he’s a rousing center of attention.
Built for the largest IMAX screens, F1 is a well-oiled big-budget machine. Yet for all its rattling and humming, screeching and screaming, it never kicks into memorably thrilling gear. So consumed is Kosinski with situating viewers in the thick of Formula One mayhem that he neglects to spend adequate attention on his characters and their plights, all of which have been assembled with spare parts from past cinematic models.
Pitt and some breathtaking racing centerpieces easily prevent the film from crashing and burning, but they ultimately aren’t enough to get it anywhere near a place on the all-time sports-movie podium.
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