► The new F1 movie is nearly here
► What should we expect?
► The one glaring issue
He’ll bounce back. His skin seems to be pretty thick – thick enough to cope with the bad press garnered by a big chunk of his CV, including Bullet Train and Ocean’s Thirteen. But for better or worse we’re here to break the news to Brad Pitt: your new racing-themed movie, F1, will mostly just annoy and disappoint people.
We’ve not seen it. It might contain some very entertaining bits. It certainly seems to have been thoroughly researched, and a huge budget has gone into it. There’s definitely some significant talent on board with the project.
The problem is not how good or bad it is compared to other movies. The problem is that it is a movie.
After more than 100 years, a process of elimination has resulted in three types of film working really well, and everything else being a waste of time. Those three: superheroes blowing things up; troubled detectives hunting serial killers; mournful middle-aged people getting upset about a childhood friend falling through the ice. Films about car racing: nowhere.
Instead, turn to TV and gaming for ingenious representations of the thrills, complexity, intrigue, danger and raw sex of motor racing. Drive to Survive, on Netflix, brought out quite brilliantly the aspects of modern Formula 1 – the politics, the money, the personality clashes, the toned bodies, the expensive haircuts – that appeal on the same sort of level as a soap opera or celebrity dating show.
And on your console, the Forza and Gran Turismo franchises, among many others, look and sound amazing, with some lovingly crafted details. And crucially they do an incredible job of putting you in the thick of it. The more you concentrate, the more skill you acquire, the more laps you put in, the better you get – but it’s different every time you play, keeping you on your toes.
Against all that, even the best racing movies seem patchy, with some boring bits, some implausible bits and a crushing predictability.
A couple of the best-rated motorsport-themed feature films of the last few years highlight the difficulty.
Senna, a documentary widely praised for conveying a real sense of the complex character inside the yellow, black and green helmet, was hampered by the unavoidable problem that you know how it ends, and no amount of smart editing or well-informed analysis could change that.
Ford v Ferrari, the Matt Damon/Christian Bale-led fictionalised account of the Le Mans rivalry of the ’60s, had some fine moments, and made the smart choice of focusing on the character of Ken Miles, played by Bale as a charismatic and moody obsessive. But there was an awful lot of standing around talking – sometimes in offices, sometimes in the paddock – and some weirdly cheesy shots of drivers making eye contact mid-race.
F1 will do well to be as good as those, or Rush (James Hunt vs Niki Lauda), or Ferrari, starring Adam Driver as Enzo. (And before you mention Le Mans, Grand Prix etc from the ’60s and ’70s: have you actually watched them lately? The Last American Hero stands up well, though, as does the first Cars.)
The trailers are not encouraging. The story involves the fictitious Apex GP team, where veteran racer Sonny Hayes (Pitt) is mentoring youthful team-mate Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Javier Bardem is the team owner. Various real-life F1 people also appear. It’s directed by Joseph Kosinski, who did top Gun: Maverick.
Pitt, while still being one of the most handsome men on the planet, just looks implausibly old for the role. The few snippets of dialogue are podium-level cringe: ‘We need to build our car for combat’ indeed. There are a lot of sponsor logos visible. A lot. And it feels like you’ve seen it already; put it this way, it would be extremely surprising if the Apex cars finished 14th and 17th.
So, see you at the multiplex? Probably not. On a games console or on the sofa watching telly? Much better ideas.
Or you could even go a watch some actual racing in real life. Just a thought.