The New Yorker:

The destination of this comeback narrative starring Brad Pitt may be predictable, but Joseph Kosinski’s direction insures thrillingly tight turns en route.

By Justin Chang

In “F1,” a snazzy piece of blockbuster engineering, Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, a devotee of fast cars, beautiful women, and simple living. A professional gambler and an occasional speed demon for hire, he lives in a beat-up van that he hauls from one racetrack to another. Strapping himself into a car at Daytona International Speedway, he applies just the right proportions of velocity, swagger, and insider know-how to hint at a once great racing career. About thirty years ago, Sonny was an ascendant Formula 1 star—cue many hilarious, grainy video clips of a younger Pitt, with a resplendent golden mullet—until his dreams were dashed by a near-fatal accident, during an attempt to overtake the three-time Formula 1 world champion Ayrton Senna. The invocation of an actual legend and martyr of the sport—Senna died in 1994, after a crash at the San Marino Grand Prix—is meant to supply a jolt of gravitas. Beneath the slick paint job of this movie’s crowd-pleasing fiction, we’re expected to believe, whirs a tough, reality-driven engine. For some, it may also stir memories of the documentary “Senna” (2011), one of the finest of all racing movies. “F1,” directed by Joseph Kosinski, with a script by Ehren Kruger, aspires to the same pantheon.

Does it get there? “F1” is hugely enjoyable and astoundingly well made, but I will leave the question for posterity and for more committed motorheads in the audience to decide. A few will gravitate toward the still cherished spectres of “Grand Prix” (1966) and “Le Mans” (1971); others will invoke such classics of unleaded testosterone as “Days of Thunder” (1990) and “Rush” (2013). Like the latter two films, “F1” is an epic of male aggression. At the urging of an old friend and ex-rival, Ruben (Javier Bardem), Sonny reluctantly agrees to return to Formula 1 and drive for APXGP, a battered team that can barely hold its own against the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes. Sonny strides onto the track with unruffled cool—a Pitt signature—and is laconic enough to endure a series of press conferences at which journalists are quick to label him a has-been. He isn’t much of a team player, and neither is his much younger teammate, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), a clout-chasing hothead who refuses to play the deferential protégé to Sonny’s geriatric comeback kid.

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