F1 – Not the film of the button on the top row of your keyboard but instead a big budget film of the hugely expensive motorsport that sees multi million dollar cars, engineered to perfection and fine-tuned to perfection race at high speed around a circuit endlessly – Think the supercars that turn up to do the same around Kensington but instead with drivers who actually have a driving licence and you get the idea.
But it’s Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) who’s found himself on hard times. Having stepped away from the sport after an accident he’s gone through several marriages, earned a living as a poker player, driven cabs and now we find him living out of a camper van having returned as a driver for hire at low key racing events. But he’s tempted back to the big time by his old racing friend Ruben (Javier Bardem) now a manager for a team that’s on the verge of going under and hardly helped by its star driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) a typically over confident, arrogant upstart of young driver who still needs to prove himself and who, when he’s wearing his sunglasses and earrings, looks like P Diddy’ younger brother though with more of an interest in engine oil than baby oil. He’s immediately dismissive of Sonny referring to him as ‘old man’.
But Sonny ‘s good looks and charm belies a cunning and acute understanding of the game and with only 13 races left in the season his job is to get the team off the bottom of the leader board which will prevent them being sold off to the highest bidder which their CEO Banning (Tobias Menzies) is only too keen to cash in on.
Pitt is roguishly charming as always and a traditionally male dominated sport is balanced out with their technical manager played by Kerry Condon. A great actress who holds her own against all the inevitable testosterone that sloshes around with such a sport. Helmed by Top Gun Maverick director Joseph Kosinski he brings the audience right into the many races that are exhilaratingly shot and there’s a racing commentary that in true exposition style explains the often odd rules of motor racing. And some of those lines are a help whilst others are face slap bad notably, ‘”This is not where you want to be – last place.” And its threatens to be only a breath away from a commentator saying, ‘They’re going very fast!’ It’s a script that is very much by the book with all the expected tropes – the mismatched duo whose resentment turns to mutual admiration, the hero with the devastating back story incident, the colleague romance, the catastrophic racing accident and so on – it’s a full house on your sports movie bingo card likewise too if you want to play product placement bingo too. Ultimately though F1 is all about the races themselves and as watched on an IMAX screen with surround sound with scenes complimented by classic rock tracks (Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ gets you in the mood right from the start) – this is exciting big screen spectacle.
related feature : What Quentin Tarantino said about Brad Pitt….
related feature : Just how steep are the roads in San Francisco?
Here’s the F1 trailer…….
The post F1 the movie – REVIEW appeared first on Any Good Films.
from Any Good Films https://ift.tt/h8XHnaA
