F1: The Movie

Born with a wheel in his hands, Sonny Hayes is a legendary “almost-was” in the world of racing. Once a young racer to watch, now he's old, he lives in a van, and he spends his life always looking for the next race. So when an old friend asks him to join his struggling racing team, pull it out of last place, and take his other driver, a hotshot young rookie, under his wing, Sonny agrees, and gets behind the wheel of a car from the highest class of worldwide racing: Formula One.

As the film started, I realized that it was directed by Joseph Kosinski. He made both Top Gun: Maverick, which was dumb but fun, as well as the ultimate Dad Fiction movie of all time maybe, and Oblivion, the most cool-looking movie, with a super cool idea, that was also the most boring movie ever. In fact, Oblivion is the one film I have tried the most to love and yet, get defeated every time… outside of Jupiter Ascending, of course.

Also, as I sat down to watch this film, the latest in my effort to watch all the Best Picture Oscar nominated movies before the awards are given out, two questions occurred to me…

1. Is this film basically going to be Days of Thunder: The Story of Cole Trickle, meets Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, but with a little bit of Ted Lasso: American Soccer Man thrown in for good measure?

Probably.

2. Will it also turn out that this film was only nominated for Best Picture due to Hollywood Studio politics. Meaning, was F1 only nomiated because it's the latest and most expensive attempt to revive the “Dad Fiction” Drama genre, a kind of “adult” film that isn’t made all that often anymore—at least, not outside the Tom Clancy/war porn stuff—and the reason why is they’re generally not all that popular, or really all that interesting, at the moment? Because the thing is, despite this usually being the case, this film turned out to be a huge commercial success for Apple studios, becoming Apple's first major theatrical win, and also, Brad Pitt's highest-grossing film ever, with over $600 million at the worldwide box office. Does this financial success mean that, as a result, Hollywood is now hellbent on validating it as much as possible, and that's why they nominated it? Because if this trend gets a jumpstart, that's good for the money people, as the usually simple stories of Dad Fiction Dramas, as well as their reliance on easy drama and pretty generic CGI means less money going out? Plus, other than the Formula One Racing branding (which is always fine, because the studios love a tie-in), means that it's technically an “original” property, which means that the studio owns all the rights, and as a result, the money? And so, this nomination is really just advertising for future projects?

Again, probably.

3. Finally, will this film ultimately just end up reminding me that, sadly, Jerry Bruckheimer’s films haven’t lived up to their once legendary legacy ever since Don Simpson died?

Also, sadly… probably.

Okay, fine… that’s three questions, not two. Three questions occurred to me as I was sitting down to watch F1: The Movie. In the end, it turned out that there’s only one answer that truly matters: This movie becomes a helluva lot cooler once that gummy kicks in.

A’right, a’right, a’right…

(“Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin plays.)

Sonny Hayes is a man’s man.

Sonny doesn’t care about anything except for racing. He lives in a van. He doesn’t bother wearing matching socks. He doesn’t bother finishing his waiting stack of peanut butter and white bread sandwiches. He has a really nice watch, old school, heavy as shit, and the size of a horse’s cock, but he doesn’t wear it to race, because that hunk of metal would probably throw the car’s balance off, so he leaves it by an old faded picture of him and his dad fishing. From this, we can assume the watch was his Dad’s. And from the fact that he’s now wearing the watch, and the picture is so old and faded, we can also assume that either his dad has died long ago, or he might as well have. That shit’s rough, man, even for a man like Sonny. Sonny also wears multiple necklaces, most likely as good luck charms, but also probably as ice-breakers when he’s out scoring chicks. "Oh, these? These are my good luck charms, baby... and they seem to be working..." The same probably goes for his one-handed shuffle, a classic bit of sleight of hand cultivated to impress the bar hotties. Check that shit out, ladies. So cool. But this sly little demonstration also heavily implies that Sonny plays poker. And as we also see him blind-draw a card from the deck and slide it, without looking at it, into his pocket, when coupled with the charms around his neck, this insinuates that Sonny might also have a problem with gambling, which is most likely the real reason that this mother fucker lives in a van at the age of sixty pretending to be 40. But regardless of the truth, by nature Sonny isn’t the kind of guy who lays his shit on anyone, y’know? He just lives with it. He just carries it. See, Sonny doesn’t care that he’s the coolest dad at the youth soccer match, that’s not what he’s about, he’s about listening to racing noises and classic rock on his headphones while sleeping in his van, then waking up, dunking his head in ice water to clean out the cobwebs, and doing some quick pull-ups to get the blood pumping, before going out to race. This is life in the fast lane, baby, pedal to the medal. Sonny’s got the white-line fever, my friend, there's high octane burning through his veins. He's a fuel-injected suicide machine! A rocker! A roller! An out-of-controller! Sonny's a straight shooting’ son of a gun who feels the need for speed. This is fucking man shit, baby. This is Daytona.

And 24 hours of racing needs a team of three drivers.

But those young whippersnappers on his team are gonna lose this race. Lucky for them, Sonny’s about to drive the midnight shift and retake the lead.

Shit’s about to get real.

Sonny Hayes has raced all over this world… Formula 1, Le Mans, NASCAR, the Dakar Rally, he’s even spent some time behind the wheel as a New York City Taxi driver. He doesn’t care about winning or trophies—even though that’s exactly what he always delivers, and all with a quiet intensity, a take no shit, “aim for the back of the head” attitude. See, winners come and go, buddy, so Sonny? Sonny‘s about the race. And every time he climbs a particular racing mountain, well… ol’ Sonny learned himself the lesson of ol’ Ozymandius well, and took it to heart. No need to waste time lookin’ or despairin’ upon those works, ye mighty. When the race is all said and done, Sonny gets in his van and moves on. Keep on keepin’ on, y’know? Sonny’s gotta get back to livin’, my man, L-I-V-I-N.

I’ll tell you what, though… the guy does have some bitchin’ sunglasses.

After that? Well, much like Bull Durham (but nowhere near as good and with a lot less sex), Sonny, that washed-up, old, “greatest-there-never-was” racer is recruited by an old racing pal, Ruben Cervantes, to join the F1 racing team he owns. Ruben wants Sonny to train his young driver, a young kid named Joshua Pearce, who just might be as talented as Sonny was when he was younger, but who is also a newbie, and therefore, could benefit from the wisdom of a man like Sonny, someone who‘s been where Joshua is, who’s been where Joshua is trying to go, and who knows the ins-and-outs of being a driver on the world stage of Formula One racing. Ruben also needs Sonny’s help because his racing team is always in last place. They have never won a single race, and if he has one more bad season, he could be in danger of losing everything. And all of this is happening while under the microscope of the global press, all as the world smirks at Sonny and expects him to fail.

Oh, the tension!

So… Will the young pup allow himself to learn and grow under the watchful eye of the old dog? Will the old dog learn some new tricks, and prove to the world that he not only still has it, but that he also never lost it, and all while he continues to be as American as fuck amongst all the pinkies-up Europeans? Will the Lady Mechanic succumb to Sonny's smelly-van charms? Will the F1 cup be won? Will the torch be passed? Will the team be saved? Gosh, so many questions… and when they’re added together, do you know what it all means?

It means that we got ourselves a classic big time Hollywood movie, people! Wooo-hooo! (Rock horns, tongue out, classic rock guitars wailing as a car peels out in a cloud of smoke and burnt rubber)

Much like in Days of Thunder, in F1: The Movie, we learn that rubbing really is racing, if by “rubbing” you actually mean “crashing” because, god damn, do these guys crash a lot. Like, every single race. Is that normal for formula one racing, or is the idea of crashing more like hockey fights, meaning that crashes are basically the entire reason most people watch, but actually rarely happen, so the film just went overboard here, giving the people what they want? Because if not, if people really do crash this often in Formula One racing... god damn, no wonder it’s such an expensive sport.

And much like Top Gun: Maverick... this movie is the definition of bombastic.

Also, much like Kosinski’s film Oblivion, this film is too long and kind of dull, especially as it drags on. As I heard it, or maybe I read it somewhere, the reason there’s a copyright mark by the big F1 on the poster is because the Formula One corporation, or whatever it is, was apparently heavily involved with this movie, and they are also apparently very protective of their brand. This probably explains why the film seems to be so much more interested in the many technical intricacies of Formula One racing than I assume your average American audience is, especially when it comes to the tires. There’s so much talk about the tires here. So much. I get that tire maintenance is obviously a big part of Formula One, but god damn, half this god damn film is talking about the god damn tires.

Also, let’s be honest here, the recent stories about Brad Pitt are unsettling, especially because they seem very believable and likely. Especially when you keep in mind that according to legend, the movie Living In Oblivion was made due to the director’s difficulties making his previous film Johnny Suede, all of which were because of young Brad Pitt being a narcissistic dipshit asshole. Those stories are all the more believable watching F1, a film that definitely seems to exist, in large part, in order to allow Brad to indulge in some very typical and sad rich older man’s late midlife crisis/extreme sport fetishs. Also as a reason to make it an IMAX film, but that’s unrelated to Brad being a shit, and is really more a part of Hollywood trying to create a gimmick to sell tickets. On top of all this, as we watch this film, through the lens of the story visiting various tracks on the F1 circuit, we catch a glimpse of the excess of the whole sport, of the ridiculous amount of money hoarded by those who back this sport, and that makes the whole process seem, much like the Super Bowl, to be as gross as the bread and circuses of old.

In short... this is a tough film to watch.

In the end, F1 is a grand looking film, and it is also a truly basic-ass film, just mediocre. You know from the moment this film starts exactly how it’s going to end, and it doesn’t do anything particularly interesting in the time between those two points either, other than occasionally look pretty. Even if you’re a big time F1 fan, I imagine that the actual races are so much more interesting, and as a result, more worth your time than this film.

Pass.