In Joseph Kosinski’s “F1: The Movie,†Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) talks at length about chasing a feeling of serenity within the automobiles he races. He reflects on being so in tune with the machine that he becomes one with it, as the road and the engine noise disappears. Finally, he’s flying.
Kosinski himself is chasing that sensation. I won’t spoil whether Hayes ever finds it, but with “F1: The Movie,†Kosinski is most certainly living in that arena.
Beginning with “Top Gun†in 1986, Tony Scott set the template for Jerry Bruckheimer’s production company films. For more than 20 years, they were summer staples. Scott himself helmed a racing film — 1990's “Days of Thunder,†starring Tom Cruise — a few years later. Scott’s knack for visual and auditory furor was unmatched. It developed the model for practically every summer action film for decades.
Now past the peak of spandex-clad, comic book titans, it feels like we may be entering another age. The summer blockbusters of old may be making a comeback. Kosinski’s “Top Gun: Maverick†in 2022 was a killer at the box office. It was full of a genuine sense of fun, with nary an ironic bone in its well-oiled body. Bruckheimer seems to have — in Kosinski — found his new Tony Scott.
“F1: The Movie,†is sensational. It’s everything a summer action film — and a Bruckheimer film — should be. It’s breezy and funny, with Pitt in full effortless movie-star charisma mode. The racing sequences are heart-stopping. Seeing this film on the largest screen with the most dynamic sound is a transportive experience.
Like “Maverick,†the film doesn’t reinvent the formula, but Kosinski and writer Ehren Kruger know what makes these films tick. There’s the grizzled veteran who teams up with the egotistical young buck. The romantic interest who's on the team. The owner trying to keep the whole thing together. The classic rock soundtrack (Zeppelin opening this film sets the mood perfectly) mixed with Hans Zimmer’s rousing score.
The whole experience of watching “F1: The Movie†in a theater feels like stepping into a time machine back to the 1990s, to an era where summer blockbusters were free of cinematic universes and cross-platform stories. Instead, the film begs the audience to come along for a good time.
While the aesthetic may not be as frenzied as Scott’s, replacing the baked, sun-drenched grit for a cleaner, digital workmanlike style, the feeling is the same.Â
Scott’s classic cinematic storytelling emboldened for a new era of filmmaking alone is worth film fans' time and money. It's the stuff every summer blockbuster aspires to be.
