The Roar of the Engines

F1 -The Movie (2025) – A veteran driver returns to F1 after decades away to save a team and teach a rising young star the ropes.

Director – Joseph Kosinski

Starring – Brad Pitt, Damon Idris, Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon

Why I Liked – A standard story with some impressive racing footage

Let’s get the year off to a high-speed start, with the latest attempt to bring the excitement of the technological peak of auto racing to the big screen. For me, the greatest of all racing movies is 1971’s “Le Mans”. More than any other movie, that one was about the racing. I noted in my review that dialogue is at a minimum; it’s only to get from one racing scene to the next. The next tier down are “Grand Prix” (1966), “Ford v Ferrari” (2019), and “Rush” (2013), movies with solid racing scenes but more emphasis on characters and story. I would put F1-The Movie in this second grouping, but towards the bottom.

The racing segments are brilliant and beautifully filmed. It gives that “in the driver’s seat” look and feel that I remember, most especially in “Grand Prix”. Like that movie, “F1-The Movie” falls down when it gets too caught up in the tepid storyline. The two movies have some similarities. Both feature a driver who has some issues to face from their pasts. Both have romantic entanglements with people they shouldn’t. Both will face on-track challenges that will test them to the extreme.

All of which should give them interesting stories for the off the track segments of the movie. Both came up short for me. It’s not a failure in the storytelling. Rather, the story doesn’t match the intensity and detail of the racing portions.

Sonny Hayes (Pitt) was an up and coming F1 star a couple decades before. A horrific accident sent him into retirement for a while, but he became a vagabond driver for hire. Drifting from series to series, and racing style to racing style, Sonny has shown he still has the talent. When his former teammate, now team owner, asks him to step into a car to save the team, he reluctantly agrees. Egos, technology, and old-school racing versus new create a string of conflicts. The two questions to be answered are – can he win, and will he survive?

While Sonny is the center of the story and shows some depth, too many of the immediate circle around him feel like cardboard cutouts. Damson Idris’ Joshua Pearce, and Kerry Condon’s Kate McKenna were serious disappointments for me. Pearce was just a caricature of the young, digital age star, more interested in his “brand” than his racing. Flanked by his comic book sidekick agent, and a mother who never quite felt settled for me (what was her purpose in the story? She seemed to function as her son’s conscience while undercutting him in some ways. I didn’t get her at all).

But the racing scenes? Amazing. Shot in real F1 cars, surrounded by real F1 drivers from the 2024 and 2025 seasons, they offer a less than perfect, but still highly enjoyable experience for F1 fans and those who know nothing about the series.

Despite my issues with the overall story, there’s more than enough here with Sonny’s storyline and the racing scenes. It was an absolute blast down the main straight for me.

You can stream “F1-The Movie” on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, YouTube, Fandango at Home and Google TV.

Rating – **** Recommended