“F1: THE MOVIE” - REVIEW?
I miss Tony Scott.
Why start out my review that way? I guess I don’t have a lot to say about F1: THE MOVIE. It’s a just-fine throwback blockbuster.
The chassis and engine are exactly what you would expect to find under the hood of a well-oiled machine produced by Jerry Bruckheimer (the “F” in F1 could stand for “formulaic”). The actors are well-cast and do the best they can to fill the Bruckheimer archetype roles. As has-been driver Sonny Hayes, Brad Pitt charms as he channels a character somewhere between MONEYBALL’s Billy Beane and ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD’s Cliff Booth. As the movie’s MVP, Kerry Condon adds a lot more fuel to her scenes, rising above her thinly written character. Javier Bardem and TED LASSO’s Sarah Niles have some fun moments. As the hotshot young racer, Damson Idris is fine, but he seems too relaxed of a performer to me. Either as written or as performed, he could’ve been a little meaner or more conceited to give the scenes in which he butts heads with Pitt more tension.
F1 is fun and charming at first, but the movie eventually just goes in circles for more than 2 1/2 hours. The filmmaking is sharp, it makes great use of the IMAX format, and the racing action is slick. Director Joseph Kosinski makes beautiful looking movies that aim to thrill. He knows where to put a camera, how to maximize the power of wide lenses, and makes the most of his physical resources. Narratively speaking, he tends to score higher when handling better-than-the-original legacy sequels like TRON: LEGACY and TOP GUN: MAVERICK, but he lags behind a bit with more original fare. F1 is an IP onto itself in the same way that BARBIE is, I suppose, and if you are into racing, this may be the movie for you. Everyone in front of and behind the camera understands the assignment, and being an Apple Original Films production, it is as clean, intentional and precise as any other Apple product. But no one reinvents the wheel here.
Which brings me back to the late director Tony Scott, who came up from advertising, is the brother of Ridley Scott, and who collaborated with Jerry Bruckheimer (and his late producing partner Don Simpson) on six films, including the megahit TOP GUN, CRIMSON TIDE, and ENEMY OF THE STATE, where he got to play within the Simpson-Bruckheimer formula (and, in a lot of ways, helped invent it) while grafting his own flavor, texture and humor onto it. This served him well on other films in his career, such as THE HUNGER, the Quentin Tarantino-scripted TRUE ROMANCE (which features a scene-stealing Pitt) and MAN ON FIRE, which is arguably his masterpiece. His directing style was aesthetically steeped in a commercial slickness that paired well with a little grime, a little haze, like you could smell it. My joke at home is I achieve “Tony Scott lighting” whenever I burn something a little in the kitchen and we get these shafts of smoky light through the windows (I usually laugh alone). Not only his aesthetics, but his characters, whether stock or fully realized, feel like people with needs and desires and deep hurts that can only be relieved by being really good at something, by excelling at something. Toxic masculinity, to be sure, but compelling to watch.
Kosinski owes some of his success to the groundwork laid by Scott in TOP GUN and F1’s most obvious point of comparison, 1990’s DAYS OF THUNDER, which Scott also directed. Am I saying that the much-derided commercial and critical flop DAYS OF THUNDER is actually a secret masterpiece? Heck no. What I am saying is even within the confines of a Bruckheimer film, DAYS OF THUNDER feels lived in. Watching F1, a story carried out by people who are barely characters, I wonder: do these guys ever sweat? Do they have appetites? Do they have vices that work against them? Do they have any problems beyond an audience’s intellectual understanding of them that could be played out aside from the visceral thrills of racing? Am I becoming a fuddy-duddy who has seen too many movies? (It probably also shows the difference between the star temperaments of DAYS OF THUNDER and TOP GUN star Tom Cruise and F1’s Pitt: the former has always got something to prove and everything is at stake, while the latter is a little too cool for school to be a racecar driver maybe?)
Bottom line for me: I’m not personally into sports, but I love a damn good sports movie. I try to give everything I watch a fair shake. But F1 is DAYS OF THUNDER with no surprises, crossed with a version of TED LASSO with no jokes. To be fair, there are thrilling moments in F1: THE MOVIE, but beyond feeling the rumble of the sound mix, most of the time I felt like watching a Tony Scott film instead.
F1: THE MOVIE opens in theaters everywhere Friday, June 27, and will be on Apple TV+ in perpetuity shortly thereafter.
#BradPitt
#DamsonIdris
#kerrycondon
#SarahNiles
#JerryBruckheimer
#TonyScott
Zach is a proud member of the Minnesota Film Critics Association (MNFCA). For more info about Zach, the organization, or to read other great reviews from other great Minnesota-based film critics, click here: https://mnfilmcriticalliance.wordpress.com/