REWATCH REVIEW: F1

Matakana Cinemas were having an early screening of No Other Choice (early for New Zealand anyway), an opportunity I couldn’t turn down. I had to make it a double movie day and just my luck, they were also showing an encore screening of F1 before it.

I was never going to see F1 the first time around. I just went to see it before I got groceries one day. My expectations were low because I am not a big sports or car guy. The trailers reminded me of Top Gun which made sense because Joseph Kosinski also directed Top Gun: Maverick as well as F1. I am a huge fan of Kosinski’s film Oblivion so that’s ultimately what drew me in although somewhat still reluctantly.

I loved F1 first time around. It is a turn your brain off and enjoy it movie but that’s what it is and it does it brilliantly. I was transported. I was entertained. What else does one need? Great story and depth of characters are not needed when you can do the other things well enough to compensate for their absence. So I was pumped I could get to see it in a cinema again.

Plus Matakana Cinemas have started a promo to tick off award season films patrons see. It’s across Feb and Mar though and I am a bit miffed as I saw 8 in Jan that don’t count. So having seen Marty Supreme and One Battle After Another in Feb, that’s two, F1 will be three, then I will see Sirat in March and that will be four to complete a card for 1 entry into the competition. It should be my third card, not that I am bitter or anything 😂. The prize is enough points to see 5 movies for free, which is like half a months worth at my current rate, so I am hoping to win.

F1 opens with Led Zeppelin which, to me, matches the coolness of Brad Pitt and absolutely resonates them together. It’s particularly the coolness and the groove of Jon Bonham’s drums that are as cool as Brad Pitt if you ask me. And hearing Led Zeppelin on a massive cinema sound system hits different. The start of the movie is when I usually take my earplugs out…not this time…it was so loud.

The movie is basically about a washed up F1 driver aging cowboy type character called Sonny Hayes, played by Pitt. He was a 90’s F1 star whose career ended after an accident. His friend/team owner Ruben (Javier Bardem) coaxes him out of retirement to mentor Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) at APXGP, a struggling 11th place team. The film focuses on redemption, with an aging Hayes mentoring a hotshot rookie, navigating team conflicts, and aiming to turn the underdog team into contenders. 

Pitt has resembled Robert Redford more and more as he has aged and none more so than in this movie, the resemblence is uncanny. Almost as uncanny as his co-star Kerry Condon looking remarkably like Rebecca Ferguson. I hope those two are never in a movie together as that would be so confusing.

Brad Pitt vs Robert Redford

Kerry Condon vs Rebecca Ferguson

One thing I particularly loved about this film was how clean and slick the sets were. I was expecting the pit car areas to be greasy but they looked like futuristic tech from the movie Oblivion. It’s almost felt like the director said “make everything look like an Apple product”.

Seeing it the second time made me realise it is a drama. But a male type drama. Drama that is stoic and subtle, driven by arrogance and a mans uncanny ability to do anything else to avoid feeling vulnerable. That’s exactly the type of drama this film needs. Anything else would have weighed it down. It’s first and foremost a “Car Action”, “Motorsport”, and “Action” movie before it is anything dramatic but when drama does rear its head it is perfectly done. The way men are has won men wars and sports games for thousands of years. It gets things done. Is it smart? No. Is it healthy? No. But it is still an interesting trait to observe within the male side of our species, especially on film, when done right.

I think if you removed Brad Pitt from the film it would not have worked. You could have replaced Kerry Condon with Rebecca Ferguson or Vanessa Kerby and it still would have worked (I loved Kerry Condon btw and would never replace her performance). You could have replaced Javier with someone like Benecio Del Toro. You could have replaced Damson Idris with someone like Michael B. Jordon. But replacing Brad Pitt. The only person I think could have been cast in the role is Tom Cruise. But even then he doesn’t have the cool aging cowboy that naturally exudes from Pitt. What I would love to see though, is a sequel that brings in Tom Cruise and goes up against Pitt. Two aging drivers trying to prove themselves one last time. It would be even cooler if Cruise’s character was the same one from Days Of Thunder, essentially making a trilogy. Cole Trickle vs Sonny Hayes for the grand finale. Dreams are free.

Still surprises me that this is an epic film. 8/10