Fleapit revisited:F1.

There are many reasons to dislike F1 as a sport. It's got a carbon footprint the size of a titanosaur, those who run it take money from some of the world's most despicable regimes, advertising is so dominant that essentially the cars are the fastest moving sandwich boards on the planet, and many of the races are dull processions where the overtaking takes places in the pits. Yet, despite all that, I enjoy F1. Sometimes I enjoy it a lot.

There are many reasons, also, to dislike F1 the movie. It's utterly predictable - there is no cliche the film is afraid to revisit, it's ludicrously far-fetched in places, and the product placement (not least for the alcohol free version of a well known brand of Dutch lager and another very famous American fashion label) is so blatant that there's barely a scene in the film that doesn't feature it (which does, I suppose, at least make it authentic). Yet, despite all that, I enjoyed F1 the movie. In places I enjoyed it a lot.

Directed by Joseph Kosinski, it tells the story of former F1 driver Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt doing peak Brad Pitt at all times) who, following a horrendous crash in the nineties, has spent the last three decades gambling, marrying, divorcing, racing in NASCAR and the Dakar rally, and driving a yellow cab in New York City. As well as, it seems, forever shuffling and playing with the pack of cards he has on him at all times.

Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem who has clearly realised this film is about entertainment, not hyper-reality, and plays his part accordingly) runs a struggling F1 team, APXGP. They've got a very promising young rookie in Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) but Cervantes wants Hayes' experience in the team and Hayes is fairly easily persuaded to give it a go.

Not all of the APXGP team are thrilled to have Hayes on board. Pearce thinks the old man is "arrogant", he doesn't rate his driving, and makes belittling remarks about his age, telling his mum he's "about eighty". Team principal Kaspar Smolinski (Kim Bodnia) isn't entirely approving of Hayes' maverick approach, race engineer Hugh Nickleby (Will Merrick) is willing to bet money that Hayes will spin off, and technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) is neither impressed with Hayes' driving nor his attempts to woo her.

Can Sonny Hayes win a race for APXGP and can he win the heart of Kate McKenna? Well, it's Brad Pitt and this is film made to promote the sport (sorry, business) of F1 so what do you reckon? With a soundtrack, overseen by Hans Zimmer, of Led Zeppelin, Obongjayar, Ed Sheeran, Raye, and Burna Boy and Martin Brundle's commentary acting more like exposition than actual commentary, it sometimes feels more like watching a computer game than an actual F1 race.

The racing is exciting even when it's not remotely realistic and the fact that, due to having the full backing of F1's governing body, the film features cameos from most of the current crop of leading drivers (including three world champions in Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, and Lewis Hamilton who even gets a production credit on the film) and other F1 bigwigs like Toto Wolff and Christian Horner it feels more authentic than it probably should.

It's gripping, it's fun. Much like an F1 race itself you have a rough idea of how it will end but you're not quite sure how it will get there. There are good supporrting performances from Sarah Niles (as Bernadette, Joshua's mum), Calllie Cooke (as Jodie, an inexperienced tyre gunner), and Abdul Salis (as the team's chief mechanic) and there are slightly hammier, but fun, parts for Tobias Menzies (an APXGP board member and very much the villain of the peace) and Simon Kunz as an old school broadcaster.

There is much for hardcore F1 fans to be pissed off about (the silliness of some of the tactics, the unlikelihood of some of the overtaking moves actually coming off or even being permitted) but there are lots of things to keep them on board too. Sonny Hayes reminisces about his time racing with Senna, Prost, Schumacher, and Mansell, there's some wheel to wheel action that may remind long term fans of the tussle between Rene Arnoux and Gilles Villeneuve in Dijon in 1979, and another scene that may remind even older viewers of Niki Lauda's terrible crash at the Nurburgring in 1976.

We follow Sonny Hayes, Joshua Pearce, and all the real life drivers from Silverstone to Suzuka, from the Hungaroring to Spa-Francochamps before it all comes to a head in a wonderful, almost balletic, and frightfully preposterous set piece scenario in Yas Marina. One that somehow still isn't as much of a shitshow as the one witnessed on that very same circuit in 2021 when the F1 authorities concocted a farcical scenario that stole the title from Lewis Hamilton and gave it to Max Verstappen (who has, admittedly, won every year since and deservedly so).

Despite the silliness of it all, despite the fact that it was like one of those Tom Cruise films where a guy who was really good at something loses his mojo and then, after a struggle, regains it - winning the heart of an attractive young lady in the process naturally, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It won't, it shouldn't, win any awards for originality or verisimilitude but it's a great, old fashioned, popcorn munching date night movie (even if your date is a tub of salted caramel ice cream) that you'd need to have a heart of stone not to enjoy at least a little bit. If Brad Pitt can compete in F1 at 61 years old, there's hope for all of us. Hell, he's five years older than me. See you in Silverstone.