“F1” drives fairly well along a familiar course, and I enjoyed that to some degree. Although predictably following numerous genre conventions and clichés, the movie gives us a series of top-notch car racing sequences definitely worthwhile to watch on big screen, and they will probably make you overlook its generic story and characters at least for a while

The hero of the movie is Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), a middle-aged racer who was once a promising Formula One (F1) driver many years ago before his professional career was struck by one devastating accident. The opening scene shows him working as a freelance racer in a 24-hour racing competition in Daytona Beach, Florida, and we see how deftly he accomplishes an important task for his current team.   

When he is ready to leave and then look for another team to hire him, Hayes is approached by his old colleague Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem). Cervantes is currently owning and running his own F1 team, and he needs some help from Hayes right now because his F1 team has been rather underachieving to say the least despite its rookie star racer Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Cervantes believes that Hayes can help the team as a more experienced racer to complement Pearce, and Hayes eventually agrees to accept his old friend’s request because he comes to realize that he is still hoping for being back in F1 someday despite getting older day by day.

Needless to say, Hayes and Pearce do not get along that well with each other right from the beginning due to many differences between them. However, we all know in advance that 1) Hayes will come to recognize Pearce’s aspiration and commitment as seeing a lot of himself from Pearce, 2) Pearce will also come to listen and learn from Hayes after clashing with him more than once along the story, and 3) they will come to work together more harmoniously for their common goal around the end of the story despite several setbacks for them their team.

Another predictable aspect of the story is involved with Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon), who is the technical director of Cervantes’ F1 team. Yes, besides trying to find a way to improve those racing cars for Hayes and Pearce, she surely must do some extra work for preventing any more conflict between these two willful boys who need to step back a bit for their team work, and Hayes naturally comes to admire her more than before. Yes, McKenna flatly emphasizes to Hayes that she does not want to get involved with him in more than one way, but, what do you know, she and Hayes only find themselves quite ready to cross the line between them later in the story.

Despite all these and other clichés on its back, the movie drives fast and furiously whenever it is on a race track along with its main characters, and director/co-producer Joseph Kosinski, who also wrote the story with screenplay writer Ehren Kruger, and his crew members including cinematographer Claudio Miranda and editor Stephen Mirrione did a terrific job of placing us right in the middle of several car racing sequences in the film. These sequences are constantly packed with considerable realism and verisimilitude besides expectedly providing us a lot of rapid thrill and excitement, and Kosinski, who previously impressed us a lot with “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022), demonstrates here again that he is a competent movie director who really knows how to engage and then electrify us via well-made moments of speed and action.     

The story itself is still less engaging in comparison, but that is compensated by the enduring star quality of Brad Pitt, who seems to be in the need of reminding us that he has not lost any of his vigor and charisma yet just like Tom Cruise has done again and again in “Top Gun: Maverick” and several recent Mission: Impossible flicks. Although the movie does not delve that much into Hayes’ supposedly troubled past, this sometimes resonates with Pitt’s problematic personal life during recent several years, and he ably generates enough gravitas to support his role while occasionally exuding his natural charm and charisma.

It is a bit disappointing that several other notable cast members do not have much to do around Pitt. Damson Iris complements his co-star well with his youthful confidence, but his character remains a generic archetype even though the story tries to bring more inner life to his role. While Javier Bardem, another star actor in the film who can be charismatic as Pitt, is mostly stuck in his thankless part, Tobias Menzies is suitably sleezy and sneaky as a rich businessman associated with Cervantes, and Kerry Condon, who has been more notable thanks to her recent Oscar-nominated supporting turn in “The Banshees of Inisherin” (2022), manages to overcome her clichéd character, though you may often notice a considerable age gap between her and Pitt (She is currently 42 while he is 61 at present, by the way).

On the whole, “F1” works quite well in technical aspects, and I was not that bored during its rather long running time (156 minutes) despite frequently recognizing many of its shortcomings including its predictable narrative course and superficial characterization. Although it is not better than “Top Gun: Maverick” or another recent car racing film “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), it is certainly two or three levels up from the recent Fast & Furious flicks at least, so I will not grumble for now.