At the risk of jinxing his streak, I am convinced that filmmaker Joseph Kosinski has cracked the code, at least one code, to crafting a surefire summer blockbuster hit. “It’s not about the money,” replies a smooth and debonair Brad Pitt, portraying veteran Formula One driver Sonny Hayes, when told he won’t be getting much pay to drive a dune buggy race — and he really meant it.
Kosinski’s secret sauce is building compelling narratives around highly competent but contumacious protagonists whose driving motivation boils down to passion and winning. Be it Top Gun’s Maverick or F1’s Hayes, it’s easy to believe these men would happily pay out of pocket to fly fighter jets or race Formula One if it were the only option.
Sure, they can come off as abrasive and arrogant — but it’s earned arrogance, honed through experience and shaped by failure. They are the best at what they do and aren’t distracted by any of the noise that comes with the accolades. In one early scene, Hayes wins the prestigious 24-hour Daytona race, only to walk away without touching his trophy or even accepting his Rolex. “Already have a watch,” he shrugs, wantonly exiting the podium. His eyes are set on Formula One — compared to which Daytona might as well be bumper cars at Disney World.
Indeed, few things rival the grueling mental and physical demands of Formula One racing, and Kosinski communicates this vividly. The racing scenes put you firmly in the driver’s seat as you barrel down straightaways, strategize turns, and make life-or-death decisions in split seconds, with the environment zipping past in a blur. In most action films, there is general confidence that invariably, the hero will prevail. But in F1, every turn pulses with uncertainty. Disaster feels genuinely possible.
Beneath the G-force glamor is a story of mentorship and ego, discipline and defiance. Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), Hayes’s former rival and now a beleaguered F1 team owner, brings Hayes back into the fold — out of desperation and despite, not because of, his daredevil driving.
Cervantes’s team, APXGP, hasn’t won a race. Investors are restless. With his star rookie floundering, Cervantes bets on a washed-up legend to fix the mess. These may sound like familiar sports-drama clichés, but Kosinski employs them with such aptness that they only highlight how much better F1 is than the rest.
Hayes is reluctantly paired with Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a nascent hotshot eager to make a name for himself. Pearce dresses in trendy designer streetwear, flanked by his ever-present agent, Cash (Samson Kayo) — the mere fact that he has an agent is itself an affront to Hayes, who scoffs at the pageantry. “It’s all just noise,” he mutters. “Keep your head down and drive.”
Their generational clash comes to a head midway through the film. After their first minor success, finishing in the top 10, Pearce rushes to speak with the press, grinning ear to ear. “What are you smiling about?” Hayes scolds. “You came in 10th place.” Pearce, still beaming, responds that just being in F1 is an honor. Hayes cuts him down without blinking: “Where I come from, we call that a participation trophy.”
This exchange encapsulates another hallmark of Kosinski’s protagonist archetype: There are no moral victories. No pats on the back for trying. Winning isn’t a spectrum. You’re either the best, or you need to work harder. One of the film’s highlights is seeing Pearce, under Hayes’s gruff tutelage, slowly come to appreciate this wisdom, rather than shrugging off the older driver as a boomer past his prime.
F1: The Movie is effectively Top Gun: Maverick with F-18 Hornets swapped out for Formula One race cars. And instead of dogfights and bombing Iranian nuclear sites, Hayes, the film’s cavalier driver, maneuvers and strategizes his way through racetracks at staggering speeds of 200 miles per hour.
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Hayes, for his part, is not afraid to bend the rules. “Plan C — C is for combat,” he radios to his bench, moments before spurring a rival into breaking his front wing and triggering a cleanup, conveniently slowing down the field to help Pearce climb the ranks. F1 purists might dismiss this as borderline cheating, but Kosinski’s F1 isn’t meant to be a documentary or a training manual for hopeful drivers. It’s an entertaining thriller, and for entertainment’s sake, we call it strategy.
Ultimately, there is little to fault in Kosinski’s film. From the booming engine sounds to Hans Zimmer’s pulsating score, I was glued so deeply into my chair that the 2 1/2-hour runtime zipped by with an appropriate sense of speed. In an era of self-driving cars and silent electric engines, it’s refreshing to be reminded that skill, instinct, and grit still matter.
Harry Khachatrian (@Harry1T6) is a film critic for the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a software engineer, holds an MBA from the University of Toronto, and writes about wine at BetweenBottles.com.