Film Review: F1

F1® The Movie
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Monolith Pictures, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Plan B Entertainment, Dawn Apollo Films
In Theaters: 06.27.2025

Formula One racing gets its name from a uniform set of rules, or “formula” that all participants and cars must follow. Jerry Bruckheimer Films, the production company that gave us Top Gun, Armageddon, Pirates of the Caribbean, and more, gets its name from mogul and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, yet the same statement applies: it’s all about following the formula. In that sense, F1® The Movie (or simply F1 to everyone who isn’t following a studio mandate to refer to it by an idiotic moniker in writing) is quite literally the perfect vehicle for the king of high octane blockbuster filmmaking. 

Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt, Fight Club, Once Upon A Time… In Hollywood) was once a prominent Formula One racing driver in the 1990s, until his career was destroyed by a devastating crash that forced him into early retirement. In the years that followed, he drifted through various racing circuits and even took work as a New York City cab driver, living a nomadic life fueled by an addiction to gambling and adrenaline. Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem, No Country For Old Men, Dune), an old friend and owner of the Apex Grand Prix racing team, approaches Sonny with an offer to join the team as a driver. As Sonny and his team mate, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris, Astral, Outside The Wire), a rising young star, both try to take the lead, they have to learn how to yield the right of way if they are never going to  successfully merge.

F1 is almost exactly the racing movie answer to Top Gun that Tom Cruise and director Tony Scott failed to deliver 35 years with the slow and meandering Days of Thunder, and it more than firmly establishes Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski as one of the greats when it comes to delivering nail-biting spectacle based on practical, reality based action rather than CGI wizard. The closest I come to being a racing fan is having sold a pair of shoes to Shirley Muldowney, and my engine wasn’t exactly revving for this movie. While it takes a bit of time to get out of neutral, when Kosinski gets it up to speed, F1 puts the audience in the driver’s seat, making for a thrillingly immersive moviegoing experience. In terms of story, it’s strictly by the numbers and couldn’t be much more predictable if it tried, and it’s ultimately just another Bruckheimer film about hotshots learning to balance the war between the egos and their doubts in order to put their demons behind them, so that they, the supporting characters and the audience can properly bask in the awesome glow of their raging machismo. The screenplay by Ehren Kruger (The Ring, The Brothers Grimm) does a solid job of making the sport accessible to the uninitiated, and most of the dialogue sequences are more engaging than they have any right to be. While flawless cinematography and even more impressive editing have to be given a good deal of credit, Kosinski is the man behind the wheel, and despite hitting his share of bumps in the road with Tron Legacy and Oblivion, the guy is turning out to be one hell of a driver. 

Another crucial part of the Bruckheimer formula is movie stars, and here, Brad Pitt channeling the King of Cool, Steve McQueen, is enough star presence to make a far more flawed movie into a fun ride. Pitt doesn’t need a strong ensemble to surround him to make this work, but he gets one anyway, and whenever he and Bardem were on screen together, I was so pulled in by their commanding presence and undeniable good looks that I wondered if Dr. Alfred Kinsey was sitting behind me taking notes about my reactions. If he was, he was surely scribbling furiously during all of the scenes featuring the incomparable Kerry Condon (The Banshees of Inisherin) as Kate McKenna, the team’s technical director and Sonny’s love interest. Condon exudes intelligence and charm, and much like they did in Top Gun: Maverick, Bruckheimer and Kosinski are boldly daring to make the statement that a woman over 40 can be taken seriously as smart and sexy leading (as long as they are playing opposite an actor in his 60s). Idris is solid enough as Joshua Pearce, though the only thing I found interesting about the character was his mother. Sarah Niles (Ted Lasso) steals the movie as Bernadette Pearce, Joshua’s feisty mother, even if the character isn’t anything we haven’t seen before.

F1® The Movie isn’t anything particularly original, innovative, or groundbreaking, yet it is something that the film industry needs even more than those things right now: a thrilling, crowd pleasing experience that truly demands to be enjoyed on the biggest screen possible, and if it can drive people to experience the incomparable experience of the silver screen, before it pulls in to its permanent parking space on APPLE TV+, it’s a champion in my book. —Patrick Gibbs

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