No matter how high one climbs or all the accolades one accumulates in their profession of choice, it’s extremely rare that one grabs them all in their lifetime. Racing driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) is a longstanding veteran behind the wheel, accumulating many accolades across the span of his 30 plus year career. However, the one that has eluded him is his lack of success in Formula 1. Once a rising prodigy, a horrific accident ended his F1 career prematurely and caused him to spiral for a few years. He went in and out of marriages while battling a gambling addiction. Since then, he’s become a racing nomad, driving cars and winning on tracks across different organizations. He’s made peace with the fact that he’s “The best that never was.”

Yet, an itch he didn’t know needed scratching is present when old friend and now F1 team owner Rubén (Javier Bardem) reenters his life asking for Sonny to join his team, APXGP, halfway through the season. APX is down bad, and Rubén risks getting ousted by the board. He needs results and believes Sonny is the person to get them. After deliberation, Hayes joins the fray and the team in London. F1 races aren’t won alone or solely on racing ability, and he’ll need to build relationships with the technical director and car designer, Kate (Kerry Condon) as well as his new teammate, the talented but egotistical Joshua (Damson Idris), threatened by the presence of the one-time phenom.

F1 is just about everything you could want from a summer blockbuster. Grandiose action? Check. Movie star power old and young? Check. Simplistic but useful story? Check. If you’re a Formula 1 superfan who is looking at this movie with a fine tooth comb for accuracy, you’ll find a lot of issues. But for the bulk of viewers, it’s going to be hard to not grin from ear to ear during multiple miles of runtime.

Going from directing planes to automobiles is Joseph Kosinski after the immense success of Top Gun: Maverick. With F1, the engineer-turned-director has once again architected an impressive array of practical setpieces. Working with Formula 1 drivers during in-season competitions and using the consultative feedback from its most popular one in Lewis Hamilton make the movie more easier to fall into the world. Technically, the editing and first-person cockpit views deliver exhilaration, essentially being right there with the drivers as they make split second decisions at hyperspeed. The only noticeable nitpick comes at the end with an extremely apparent CGI background. Hans Zimmer’s score is another winner, combining traditional sounds with electronic ones. It’s aggressively propulsive where necessary, and meditative at the times where the movie banks into the pathos.

Perhaps more so than any other genre, sports films tend to carry the most similar story structures. Typically, a great story carries multiple elements of the following: dueling teammate or coach/player tension, a grizzled veteran clashing with an immature youngster, the main character overcoming past demons, and maybe a romantic plot for good measure. F1, co-written by Ehren Kruger and Kosinski, has all of these, and where the story goes and how it ends is far from a surprise. But to use an age-old quote, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. For a 2.5 hour-plus feature, F1’s journey—save for maybe 1-2 unneeded scenes—is executed well, and the screenwriters do more than enough to get viewers invested in seeing the underdogs win and providing everyone with their own happy endings. The only thing that feels hilariously out of place even as a novice Formula 1 watcher are the tactics to which Sonny employs to get APX on the points leaderboard.

For some movies, the presence of a lead mega-movie star is more important than how the actual star performs within the feature. In F1, the Hayes character is a glove-like fit for Pitt, almost as if he’s approximating himself with the heights, trials, and tribulations in his personal life and career. Opposite Pitt, Idris holds his own well enough. It’s Bardem and Condon though who elevate what could have been very forgettable parts and characters into ones that end up being very integral to the emotional beats working so well.

Putting traditional tropes into a sport rarely reflected on the big screen, F1 leans into the grand spectacle of Formula 1. It’s pure racing electricity on the big screen.

B+

Photo credits go to impawards.com, brobible.com, IMDB.com, and ew.com.