F-1: The Movie
- jeffgerst
- Jul 2
- 2 min read
F-1: The Movie is the spiritual sequel to Tom Cruise’s Days of Thunder. It feels like it was written as the sequel for Cruise, and then they pivoted when Brad Pitt became the lead. Jerry Brockheimer worked on Days of Thunder and F-,1 and the director of F-1 also did Top Gun: Maverick, so it’s not a stretch to imagine there were at least talks of this being a Days of Thunder sequel. The director has said if they make a sequel to F-1, it could see Brad Pitt racing against Tom Cruise.
Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a free-spirited rebel driver who can’t be tied down and doesn’t like playing by the rules. Javier Bardem’s character owns an F-1 racing team that needs a win. As a Hail Mary, he enlists his old racing friend, Sonny, to come help out. This angers the existing driver for the team, who starts a beef with Hayes. Rounding out the team is Kerry Condon’s Kate McKenna, the car’s engineer. Kate is good at her job and attractive. That is about everything we learn about her character. This role felt like a "plug-in Rebecca Ferguson, Laura Linney or Amy Ryan-type” here casting. Condon is believably good at her job and attractive. That her character is surface-deep is not a knock on Condon, but indicative of the type of movie this is. F-1 is a formula movie in more ways than one. (See what I did there?) Pitt’s character has a few more ticks and background (he’s been married twice, had 1 marriage annulled, he has been a professional poker player, he lives in a van, doesn’t race for the money, he always carries a single playing card in his pocket but doesn’t ever look to see which one he deals himself that day, etc.), but, for the most part he is playing the same character Tom Cruise played in the 1980s-90s: rebel fighter pilot, rebel bartender, rebel race car driver, rebel funeral director, etc. (Okay, he didn’t play a rebel funeral director, but I would have liked to see that one. What Kenny Loggins or Beach Boys banger would have been written for that?)
The racing scenes are top-notch. Nice point-of-view shots and cutaways to race track layouts to allow for a feeling of what it's like in the car and where the drivers are on the course and in relation to each other. Everything off the race course is pretty stupid. Really, even some of the in-race logic is best left unstudied. People don’t behave like real people. Sonny Hayes inadvertently starts a Forrest Gump-like running club to demonstrate to us that people will follow this guy. In one team meeting, the race team starts to chant “Combat” about as authentically as if someone in real life started a slow clap. I literally laughed out loud.
F-1 is a fun but flawed film. It’s about 30 minutes too long. If it weren’t for that bloat, it would be a great popcorn movie that I might even rewatch. As it is, I can only recommend it with reservations that it is a little long and less plausible than a Hallmark Christmas movie.
