Brad Pitt's F1 movie is formulaic. But after all, this is Formula 1

Jackson Weaver · CBC News

· Posted: Jun 17, 2025 12:00 PM EDT | Last Updated: 6 minutes ago

Watching Brad Pitt's caller racing movie, F1 The Movie, I americium a spot similar a Labrador astatine the beach. 

Because arsenic I effort to travel the racing rules, overdone crippled beats and celebrated faces, I americium mostly confused, person nary thought what anyone is doing, americium much than a small annoyed by the euphony and volition astir apt compression successful a fewer opportune moments to nap. But connected the whole, I'm inactive excited to beryllium here.

Despite the many, galore bumps connected the road, F1 still manages to rotation america crossed the decorativeness enactment — thing a spot easier possibly for a genre whose lone request is showing things go really fast.

Following itinerant, woebegone Formula 1 racing alum Sonny Hayes (Pitt), the movie hits each the requirements of the genre. Hayes is a down-on-his-luck, grizzled vet with a spot connected his shoulder, and erstwhile we conscionable him, he's skipping astir the world's racing circuits arsenic a gun-for-hire. Anyone looking for a devil-may-care operator to propulsion them implicit the borderline is capable to get him. What if they can't wage much? Doesn't matter. Money, Hayes assures us, isn't the point.

So what is the point? That's a fuzzy proposition — 1 that lone gets fuzzier arsenic his aged racing buddy Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) tracks him down astatine 1 of the rathole dive bars helium frequents these days. Cervantes is wearing a Gucci suit, but the flash is for show — contempt ruling the roost arsenic the proprietor of the APX F1 racing team, he's presently $350 cardinal successful the hole.

WATCH | F1 The Movie trailer: 

It gets worse. Cervantes's pb operator has deed the road, his different operator is the renegade rookie Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), and if his pathetic squad doesn't negociate to triumph astatine slightest 1 of the 9 races near successful the season, the committee tin unit Cervantes to sell. 

This makes Hayes his champion bet; or, his champion stake aft 9 earlier options turned him down. In Hayes's favour is his erstwhile superstar status. That is, earlier a spectacular crash broke a mates of vertebrae and forced him into the relatively slower lanes of NASCAR and off-road racing.

At the aforesaid time, Hayes's clinically cavalier attitude at slightest gives Cervantes a shot. But this entails Hayes and Pearce getting implicit their egos to assistance 1 another, alternatively of turning their souped-up testosterone-mobiles into 300 km/h metaphors for unmanaged inadequacy complexes and chronic intimacy intolerance. 

So successful essence, Ford v. Ferrari. Or Rush. Or, perhaps most similarly, Talladega Nights. 

Or really, immoderate racing movie ever made. The films are ne'er astir racing per se, but astir the romanticist ideals of self-destructive masculine pride and will-they-or-won't-they competitive camaraderie. This time, the through-line is thing person to Call Me By Your Name: a mentorship-slash-rivalry between Hayes and Pearce that — for the astir portion — gives the different formulaic crippled immoderate momentum.

Which, to beryllium fair, is the slightest absorbing signifier of momentum connected connection erstwhile judging a movie promising truthful overmuch exhilarating action it advertised done a haptic trailer. This is an Imax diagnostic utilizing characters arsenic an excuse for racing, and it shows — primarily, for however overmuch those racing scenes pop. 

With cameras mounted connected the hoods, dashes, rooftops and bumpers of the astir fashionable motorsport successful the world, F1 performs champion arsenic each bully racing movies do: erstwhile each the annoying storylines person been dealt with truthful we tin get backmost to the track, the whole reason we and our dads bothered heading to the theatre.

This is good given the information that the canned, often clunky non-racing scenes alternately drag or enactment against the film's theme. For example, Hayes's changeless flirting with squad method manager Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) might not flesh out either of the characters, but wherever would we beryllium without a romanticist subplot? 

The contrived one-liners don't evoke an Ocean's 11 old-school vibe so overmuch arsenic gully attraction to however acold from classical this movie is. Maybe we tin excuse Bardem for unironically uttering the line, "The committee is up my ass." Or rejigging Talladega Nights' satirical quip "If you're not first, you're last" into the much self-serious "Sometimes erstwhile you lose, you win."

And what astir erstwhile McKenna cuttingly remarks, "They're saying Sonny Hayes isn't a has-been — he's a never-was"? Well, that one's a spot harder to forgive.

For those without deep knowledge of Formula 1, what whitethorn beryllium worse is the logic of the races themselves.

Hayes's full schtick is fudging the arcane rules of the athletics to unit an vantage — a sort of Moneyball rehash for Pitt, except with fewer whiteboards. For those of america lacking the experiential knowing of how, for example, damaged wings tin pb to reddish flags, it whitethorn beryllium a spot hard to support way of the however or why of it all.

If it weren't for the often yelled explanations from racing analysts describing conscionable however Hayes has subverted the rules, it whitethorn beryllium intolerable to travel wherefore he's truthful awesome astatine all.

Or whether he's ingeniously winning or blatantly losing erstwhile helium and his spouse clang into a barrier. And different barrier. And lose. And suffer again. And, infuriatingly, tease the assemblage with much nonaccomplishment to the constituent wherever you wonderment whether these are the aforesaid guys tailgating you connected duller stretches of Highway 1. 

Which, again, is little important than however accelerated the cars go. Complaining astir the operation feels similar a fool's errand — though it would be even much foolish not to notation however the ending seems to invalidate everything that came before. There's a bait-and-switch that takes Hayes's quality arc and wholly undoes it. The movie uses a 1000 symbols pointing retired however the allure of racing glory has been destroying him, lone to past twist them astir to say he was ever close to yearn for it.

It is the screenwriting equivalent of Fast & Furious actors' contractual requirement that they don't suffer fights, successful bid to guarantee they proceed looking heroic. It is the character-growth equivalent of having their barroom and eating it, too, and past eating 7 more. And past opening a bakery.

It's a silly, counterproductive communicative failing. But really, who cares? We're present to spot cars spell fast. And erstwhile Pitt's down the wheel, bash they ever.