MOVIE REVIEW: F1 IS EFFIN' FANTASTIC
And you don't even have to be a gearhead to enjoy it.
Literal screenshot of “F1-The Movie”, taken from my theatre seat.
Ever since the 2019 debut of Drive to Survive, the Netflix series that goes behind the scenes of Formula One racing, there has been an unprecedented surge in the sport’s popularity. I’m not talking about a pickleball-type surge, where a few million folks decided to take up the sport during COVID and then invaded tennis courts in search of a place to play. Oh no, this is much bigger; 750 million viewers around the world have tuned into the series, so why not capitalize on its success and the interest surrounding Formula One? After all, the circuit includes two relatively new U.S. stops: Miami, since 2022 and Las Vegas beginning in ’23. I remember the days when the only F1 racing you’d see in the U.S. was at Watkins Glen, a nice little track in the Finger Lakes region of New York State, near Ithaca. I was at the final F1 race there, in 1980. It was Jody Scheckter’s final race, in a beat-up Ferrari. He finished 11th and last. Gilles Villeneuve, in the other non-turbocharged Ferrari, crashed on the 49th lap. Alan Jones won the race to little fanfare as Grand Prix racing suffered in America while other types of Motorsports like NASCAR and Indy Car gained millions of fans.
Contrast that with today. Formula One is huge worldwide and that includes America. But, it had lost some of it’s shine of late. This film came out at just the right moment because the long and boring win streak for Red Bull racing and driver Max Verstappen had become stale and predictable. There was more than a little disinterest and lack of storylines. But in 2025, Red Bull has been usurped by McLaren, and there’s an exciting battle going on for the real-life Formula One championship now. Mercedes and Ferrari are in the mix as well. F1 fans are fully engaged again.
Producer Jerry Bruckheimer, a hockey guy who is the majority owner of the Seattle Kraken, also knows a thing or two about blockbuster action films. He is responsible for movies like Top Gun, Beverly Hills Cop, Pirates of the Caribbean, and TV shows The Amazing Race as well as the entire CSI series. He was recently interviewed on CBCs “Q” program and offered this glowing guarantee.
"You don't have to be a racing fan or know anything about F1 to really enjoy this movie because once we get you in the theatre, we're going to surround you with a great story, great visuals and great sound. You're going to have a great experience for over two hours. And I promise you, you'll feel better when you walk out than when you walked in."
He was right. My partner and I saw the film at the IMAX Theatre and were thoroughly impressed. Couldn’t stop talking about it. Neither of us expected much more than a Mission Impossible-style blockbuster with wild stunts and crazy special effects. Instead, the storyline, the production value, the acting, the visuals, the natural sound and the thrilling racing action had us on the edge of our seats. The music was awesome, beginning with Led Zeppelin and continuing at a breakneck pace throughout the film. There were no lulls in the action, only anticipation of the next race and the conflicts that would surely bring the protagonist down and perhaps end his career. . . and possibly his life.
I don’t want to give too much away, but let me say that lead actor Brad Pitt, who plays Sunny Hayes, a supposedly washed-up race car driver, provides one of his finest performances on screen. If you took his characters from Moneyball, Seven, Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and put them in a blender, you’d have Sunny Hayes.
Brad Pitt as race car driver Sonny Hayes at the 24 Hours of Daytona. Screengrab by me.
The 61-year-old Pitt insisted on doing his own stunts, so rather than sit in a car on a soundstage and pretend to be going 200 miles an hour with a green screen behind him, Pitt was in the cockpit of a vehicle that can best be described as a rocket ship on four wheels. He took a physical beating while driving the car and having to deal with the G-force of going from 180 miles an hour to 50 m.p.h. in the corners. Bruckheimer said he was terrified that Pitt would crash the car. . . and released a massive exhale when the final scene of the movie was completed with both Pitt and the $20 million (U.S.) vehicle still in one piece.
Pitt and the car were the stars of the film, but the supporting cast was good, too. You know when an actor pops up on screen and you say “Hey, I know who that is”? Well, I was delighted to see Academy Award winner Javier Bardem as Ruben Cervantes, the man who coaxes Hayes back to Formula One racing after a 30-year absence. He’s hundreds of millions of dollars in the hole and needs Hayes to bail him out. Danish actor Kim Bodnia, who was a mainstay on the series Killing Eve as Konstantin, plays Kasper Smolinski, the crew chief for the racing team that Hayes has joined.
There’s also Sarah Niles, the psychiatrist Dr. Fieldstone on the hit show Ted Lasso. She plays the mother of Hayes’ racing teammate and rival, Joshua Pearce, played by Damson Idris, who was brilliant in the series Snowfall.
Also prominently featured is Irish actress Kerry Condon, who I loved as Stacey Ermantraut in the series Better Call Saul. Here, as Kate, she plays a rare character in Formula One: A female Technical Director of a racing team. Both she and Sonny Hayes want to win and prove the naysayers wrong. A very likeable character, and one who has a chip on her shoulder and brings out a different side of Hayes, the hardened, macho character seeking redemption.
Although I wouldn’t classify myself as a gearhead, I did cover Motorsport racing for a few years. I couldn’t help but get close to some of my interview subjects, many of whom were about my age. Race car drivers in particular, were quite likeable because they dealt with the inevitability of death or near destruction every time they got behind the wheel. I was friends with the great Gilles Villeneuve when I worked in Montreal radio. He died in a horrible crash during qualifying for the 1982 Belgian Grand Prix. He was 32. I wrote extensively about him in my new book, which I will provide a link to at the bottom.
I had another friend, Dale Singleton, a motorcyclist from Dalton, Georgia. Wonderful guy with a thick southern accent. I met him in 1978 when he was staying in the next room at the Flying Dutchman motel near Mosport racetrack. He was drinking gin and 7-Up and had Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “That Smell” thumping from his boom box.
“Say you'll be alright come tomorrow
But tomorrow might not be here for you
Ooh, that smell
Can't you smell that smell?
Ooh, that smell
The smell of death surrounds you.”
Those morbid lyrics written by Ronnie Van Zandt were inspired by a drunken car crash that nearly took the life of one of his bandmates. It foreshadowed a tragic ending: Three days after the song and it’s album Street Survivors was released, a plane crash killed Van Zandt and several other members of the band.
Singleton and I had talked about the inherent risks of racing and the thrills that came with them. He had a bad crash that year at Mosport and broke his wrist and collarbone, but came back to win the Daytona 200 twice before pursuing a career in NASCAR. Singleton died in a private plane crash, en route to a race in South Carolina in September of 1985, a few days after his 30th birthday.
The first time I lost a friend to a crash was when I was in tenth grade at Newtonbrook Secondary School. My good buddy Craig Jackson was killed in a terrible motorcycle accident. He was just 16. My mother made me promise to never get on a motorcycle for the rest of my life. I never have. Too scared.
I thought of my three friends a few times during the movie. How much they loved speed and what risks they were willing to take to feel the exhilaration. Spoiler Alert: This film has a few crashes that jar you into realizing how ridiculously dangerous the sport is and how ridiculously exciting it is to watch. You just can’t look away. For what it’s worth, I think my dearly departed friends would have enjoyed this film as much as we did.
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Find out more about my relationship with Gilles Villeneuve and other stories in my new book, Madness: The Rise and Ruin of Sports Media