F1

Last night, I was taking a walk when I paused in front of the local movie theater and discovered that I was right on time to see this movie. So, I went on an impulse and saw it. It was good.

The title, F1, is short for Formula One, which for those of you who've been living in caves, is an auto racing format. Brad Pitt, still decent looking at 61, plays a once up-and-coming race car driver named Sonny, who washed out of F1 when his risky behavior got him seriously injured. Since then, he's been gambling, womanizing, and living in a van (albeit a nice one), traveling around and finding adventures that mainly involve motor vehicles. Like winning the Daytona 500 and then walking away without even keeping the wristwatch, despite the team's owner begging him to stay.

Sonny hasn't been looking to return to the F1 circuit, but a former racing opponent named Ruben, played by Javier Bardem, whose investment in a racing team is about to go down the tubes, begs him to do so. They're now halfway into their third season without getting a single point, ever. This means they've never placed in the top 10. They're down a driver and their other driver, a cocky kid named Pearce, is facing career oblivion if he doesn't start winning. Or at least placing.

Against his better judgment, Sonny shows up and joins the team. He clashes with Pearce, with the tech team, with the crew, with Ruben, with the car. Boy, does the car take a beating. Little by little, he wins the team over to his aggressive, combat style of driving, which after a few initial setbacks starts to pay off. But then this happens, and that happens, and my goodness, two-and-a-half hours goes by, heavy on the racing but with lots of drama packed into the interludes, and ... I mean, you're going to watch this, right? I've given away more than enough.

I love Pitt's work in this movie. It's hard to believe that I once considered him a lousy actor. And though I don't, as a rule, watch racing, I'm always down for a racing movie. Also and more generally, I don't, as a rule, watch sports, but I've always enjoyed a good sports movie. Even at a run time of 156 minutes(!), F1 succeeds in the thing that sports movies, and racing movies, generally get right: keeping you (by which I mean me) invested in the story and grabbing for the emotions. I mean, I didn't get teary-eyed or anything, but I did catch myself grabbing at phantom controls during some high-intensity racing scenes. So, the action is good. The photography is good. The soundtrack is fun. The characters come to life, which is to say, the cast is good. Other cast members whose names ring a bell include Kerry Condon as the team's Irish-accented technical director, Tobias Menzies as a mendacious team board member, a bunch of people as themselves, and as Pearce a young fellow named Damson Idris who probably should be going places – though my saying so hasn't made it so, many and many a time before.

Three Scenes That Made It For Me: (1) Bardem comes to Condon's hotel room, looking for Pitt. She huffs, "First of all, how dare you? Second of all, I would never! But anyway, he's right here." (2) Pearce's mother tells Sonny that if he gets her baby hurt one more time, she'll – you know. I mean, listen to that Nigerian accent! (3) Any of the probably hour-and-a-half worth of racing footage spaced throughout the film. Gripping stuff! But probably, best of all, the moment when – you'll know it before Condon says it out loud – Pitt feels himself flying.