Brad Pitt Takes Hollywood Racing at Full Speed

Brad Pitt has spent enough of his career playing effortlessly cool characters that Sonny Hayes could easily have become another variation on something we've seen before.

Instead, Pitt gives the character just enough wear and tear to make him interesting.

Hayes still has the confidence of someone who once believed he could compete with the best drivers in the world, but underneath it lies the knowledge that his greatest opportunity disappeared long ago.

That makes his return about more than simply winning races.

This is a man trying to discover whether what once defined him still has a place in his life.

Pitt doesn't overplay any of it. Sonny is charismatic, stubborn, occasionally infuriating, and clearly operating on a racing philosophy that belongs to another generation.

It's precisely the kind of role Pitt handles brilliantly.

A comeback story only works if the veteran has somebody capable of challenging him, and Damson Idris provides exactly that as Joshua Pearce.

Pearce is young, quick and convinced that his future lies at the front of the Formula One grid.

Then Sonny Hayes arrives.

Their relationship gives the film much of its personality because neither man particularly wants to accept what the other can teach him.

Sonny has experience Joshua doesn't possess. Joshua has speed, ambition and a modern understanding of the sport that Sonny can't simply dismiss.

The inevitable clashes between them occasionally follow familiar sports-movie territory, but Pitt and Idris have enough chemistry to make the rivalry work.

More importantly, Joshua never feels like he's merely standing beside Brad Pitt's character waiting to learn a valuable lesson.

He wants to beat him.

That competitive edge gives their relationship some bite.

This is where F1 earns its title.

Joseph Kosinski understands that audiences have already watched thousands of hours of beautifully photographed Formula One footage on television. Simply recreating a conventional broadcast won't be enough.

The movie therefore tries to put us somewhere television usually can't.

Right beside the driver.

Cars thunder past barriers, attack corners, and fight for position while cameras capture the extraordinary violence and precision of driving a Formula One car at racing speed.

There are moments when you stop thinking about the plot entirely because the sheer sensation of movement takes over.

It's the same trick Kosinski pulled with the aerial sequences in Top Gun: Maverick.

The machinery becomes part of the performance.

And on a large screen with a powerful sound system, F1 can be exhilarating.

One of the smarter things about F1 is that it recognises that races aren't won entirely with the accelerator pedal.

Strategy matters.

Tyres matter.

Pit stops matter.

Weather matters.

Teamwork matters.

And sometimes winning isn't actually about finishing first.

The movie simplifies parts of Formula One because it has to remain understandable to viewers who have never watched a Grand Prix, but it still conveys the constant calculations happening around the drivers.

Sonny's greatest asset isn't necessarily outright speed.

It's his ability to understand a race.

That distinction matters even more when paired with Joshua, whose raw talent represents a very different kind of driver.

For existing Formula One fans, plenty of recognisable details are easy to enjoy. For newcomers, the film explains enough without turning every racing sequence into a lecture.

Strip away the Formula One machinery, and F1 is built from extremely familiar sports-movie components.

The ageing veteran.

The talented youngster.

The struggling team.

The old mistakes.

The rivalries.

The chance for one final shot at glory.

You can see some of the corners coming long before the movie reaches them.

But familiarity isn't necessarily fatal when the execution is this entertaining.

Sports movies have been recycling variations of this story for decades because the formula works. What matters is whether we care when the decisive moment arrives.

For most of F1, we do.

Kosinski keeps the film moving, Pitt provides the star power, and the racing sequences deliver enormous spectacle whenever the human drama threatens to become too predictable.

F1 isn't trying to reinvent the sports drama.

It's trying to make an enormous, exciting Hollywood version of one.

And it succeeds.

Brad Pitt remains one of those increasingly rare performers who can make a blockbuster feel bigger simply by appearing at its centre, while Damson Idris ensures the younger half of the film's central partnership can comfortably hold his own.

But the real attraction is the racing.

Joseph Kosinski takes one of the fastest sports on Earth and makes it feel even faster.

There are quieter character moments, rivalries and plenty of familiar sporting triumph-and-disaster storytelling along the way, but when those engines fire up and the cars head towards the grid, F1 becomes exactly what audiences came to see.

A great big racing movie.