Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A-

Brad Pitt and Damson Idris play rival racecar drivers of different generations, who butt heads when first put together on an F1 racing team, and—spoiler alert!—eventually learn to work together and find mutual respect. This is the driving force behind the ultimately very simple and very Hollywood plot of F1, the movie, and it really offers us nothing new in terms of storytelling.

As always, however, it’s the context that matters. F1 is set entirely within the world of Formula One, complete with blink-and-you-miss-them cameos of real-life F1 drivers, and is sure to be a delight to bona fide Formula One fans. The thing is, though—I’m hardly a fan of Formula One (I would best be described as utterly indifferent), and even I was pretty delighted by this movie.

Here is the credit director and co-writer Joseph Kosinski deserves: the surest sign of a truly skilled filmmaker—indeed, a truly skilled storyteller—is an ability to make something of otherwise no interest compelling. Kosinski did this extraordinarily well with Top Gun Maverick and its jet fighter planes, and now he’s done it again with car racing.

Whether Brad Pitt’s career-highest salary of $30 million, or the film’s reported $300 million budget, turn out to have been wise investments, remain to be seen. If nothing else, the money appears well spent onscreen: F1 has many racing sequences, all of them gripping, if not outright thrilling, thanks to excellent editing and a certain kind of cinematography that stops just short of being too flashy.

In any case, there is not much to be said for the depth of any of these characters. But, this film is so well cast that they infuse otherwise fairly stock characters with real chemistry and personality. I was relieved to find Brad Pitt is playing a character roughly his actual age (61), making him a believable friend to Javier Bardem (56), playing the owner of an F1 team struggling to win any races. Ruben (Bardem) has convinced Sonny Hayes (Pitt), a driver whose seemingly limitless prospects were destroyed in the nineties by a horrible racing crash, to join a team with another young man with incredible talent, Joshua Pearce or “JD” (Damson Idris). Sonny’s hire is widely seen as a last-ditch desperate act, with hopes pinned on combining cocky youth with cocky experience. Can you guess how things turn out? No spoilers! (I suppose there are literal spoilers. Those are things on cars, right?)

There are plenty of other characters in the mix, played by the likes of Kerry Condon (as the team technical director, out to prove all her doubters wrong—and also to hook up with Brad Pitt, but I mean, who among us); Tobias Menzies (as a dubious board member); Kim Bodnia (as the team principal); even Shea Whigham in a surprisingly small part (as the owner of a team Sonny drove for at 24 Hours of Daytona), among others. Although Pitt is clearly the major star of this film, in another era this would be a reliable star-making turn for Idris; it may be yet. Otherwise, F1 is very much an ensemble film, and it succeeds as such—much is made of Formula One being a “team sport,” and this cast is well matched for approaching their onscreen performances the same way.

I found myself caring about all of them. Not in any profound way, as this film is not designed to be profound: it’s designed as entertainment. And it is very much that, especially with all the globe trotting it takes to actual Formula One race settings around the world. I had a very similar response to Ford V. Ferrari in 2019, and I would still say that one’s a slightly better movie. Formula One fanatics may disagree; this kind of thing can depend on where your interests and loyalties already lie.

My interests and loyalties lie far outside of any sport, let alone racecars—they lie in cinema. And that’s what F1 the movie is: it’s just a great movie-going experience.

*Listen punk, just do your job, which is entertaining people at the cinema!*

Overall: B+