All speed, not much of buzz
This big-budget slick, glossy, star-driven film by Joseph Kosinski (‘Top Gun: Maverick’) delivers a sensory overload. It’s definitely not meant to be brain feed, given that the focus is on getting the audience so involved in the fuel for the senses that they are likely to forget the lack of real drama and emotion in all that revved-up excitement.
Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a former Formula 1 driver, does the rounds of different racing championships in his camper van. He is a loner, lives a nomadic life, has three unsuccessful marriages behind him, and a single-minded focus to excel at his advanced age.
Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), his old teammate and current owner of the struggling Apex GP, recruits Sonny to team up with rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) to lead the struggling F1 team to a grudging chance at glory.
We get to know through documentary footage of an actual F1 crash — a death-defying crash that left Sonny unable to compete at the elite level. The constant flirtation with death is what thrills here. The teams in the circuit are as dependent on adrenaline junkie drivers in their futuristic fast cars as they are on the technicians involved in maintaining their primacy on the tough circuit.
Kosinski shoots his movie using real tracks, real teams, and real drivers. The film was shot throughout the 2024 season, and Pitt and the rest of the cast were regulars in the pits. The visual aspects of Formula 1’s spectacular elements are showcased excitingly on the big screen with sound design and camerawork that makes everything look like it’s done in real time.
The film integrates real-world sleek cars, high-pressure pit stops, and a globe-trotting schedule with cinematic glamour. We see drivers clad in protective gear jumping into cockpits and accelerating at mind-blowing speeds while communicating strategy via radio to control base at the pits.
IMAX tech and Drive to Survive camera inputs aid the stupendous cinematography in showcasing thrills we’ve not seen before.
We even see Fernando Alonso and Toto Wolff interacting with Sonny. But, unfortunately, the races don’t come across as dramatic enough as they sprawl through the last nine Grand Prix contests of the season in the Formula One World Championship. The story does not generate as much buzz as the speed, the flashy fast cars or the stars.
Sonny and Joshua are an explosive combo. They begin as rivals before Sonny mentors the young driver into a team man. Callie Cooke as Jodie, a female mechanic, and Kerry Condon as Kate McKenna, Apex GP’s first female technical director, are merely representatives of their gender.
Lewis Hamilton and Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali have collaborated on this film. Primed as a befitting feature length commercial for the sixth most lucrative sport in the world, this movie makes its superficial dash at excitement without grounding us in the nitty-gritty of the human story and drama thereof.
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