Now in theaters
When a young driver seems to be losing his focus, the team owner brings in an old friend to help mentor him.
Written by Ehren Kruger and Joseph Kosinski, and directed by Kosinski, F1 is a bit of a mess, one that feels extra familiar to fans of car racing films, especially Formula One film fans. The story here came from a version of the Ford versus Ferrari script and is clearly inspired by the Stallone F1 vehicle Driven. The story here is pretty exactly as expected with conversations that seem lifted from Ford versus Ferrari and story beats that are unavoidably connected all the way back to Driven. This is a film made to give the spotlight to the older driver who in this case makes many choices that are questionable at best. The writing here works, but it’s cribbed from so many places, it feels like it has zero originality from start to finish. The direction works decently with the material at hand and the cast that has some heavy hitters. On a side note, there are 3 female characters and both of them get little to do and have character arcs that lead nowhere but into questions.
The cast here is led by Brad Pitt, for whom this is a vehicle, like it or not, and where he plays a character that seems to be meant to give him his shining star back while the character is morally grey at best. His acting here works, but it’s Brad Pitt, if the man can’t make a part work at least decently, perhaps the part isn’t well-written and shouldn’t be put on screen. Stealing scenes with enthusiasm is Javier Bardem as the leader of the bunch, the owner of the team who answers to a board of directors. Honestly, his performance is the most entertaining of the whole film. The man can act, he has charism, and he can make almost anything work. Joining them as the rookie is Damson Idris who either is insufferable or plays the part extremely well; it’s hard to tell here. In the only two female roles that has any sort of anything to do with the story are Kerry Condon, Sarah Niles, and Callie Cook (there are other women, but their impact is even smaller. These three do what they can with their scenes, but it feels like all of them had probably half or more of their scenes cut and their characters are only there to make the men look good or bad, but not really to have much impact. Condon does get a bit more to do, but it would have been easy to eliminate her character without that much impact. The other two ladies could be removed with basically zero impact on the story. The writing here as well as the editing are likely the culprits of this issue.
The cinematography by Claudio Miranda looks great at times and at others it’s horrifically bad. The film has full sequences shot on green screen where it’s very clear they are so. Of course, this isn’t just a cinematography issue, but an editing and visual effects issue. When it comes to non-green-screen scenes, the cinematography feels like it’s either great or phoned in. There are some great sequences here, but others such as some of the up-close racing scenes look like no one cared. There are cinematographers (and directors) who know how to do this and how to make it exciting. Here, it works but it’s just that, it works, nothing more. The film lacks style a bit, but its images are serviceable. The framing works, the lighting works, but the excitement of Formula One racing is often missing from the racing scenes.
As an aside, the film has a lot of issues with a lack of attention to detail. For example, in one scene, children are sent to sit on a tire that has just come in from the track. That would have burnt them so badly, yet everyone is all smiles. Other issues are with the locations and who attends these types of events. And even more issues are with costumes and decisions made about racing, the mechanics crew, and so many other details. Also, were they in the same room but in two different hotels in Vegas? Some of the issues are likely due to a lot of footage having been left on the cutting room floor. Still, the film is over 2.5 hours long and feels like entire sequences should be removed.
F1: The Movie is a racing film that feels much too familiar to racing film fans, making it clearly a film for general audiences who do not have any experience with the field. The lack of attention to details is maddening to anyone paying attention, the runtime is too long, but it’s still a decent film, warts and all. The excitement may low throughout for most F1 fans who know their stuff, but if you are able to shut down that part of your brain, you may just enjoy the film. The scenes that are basically exactly the same as in Ford versus Ferrari will annoy many and the film’s background shows that perhaps a bit more energy should have been spent on the script to save the film from the comparison and help with the attention to detail. For those who can, Bardem is your shining light here, keep your attention on him.