The F1 movie review

It’s been over a month since I watched the F1 movie, a movie, I must admit, I was looking forward to watching. Coming out of the movie hall, I knew it was a terrible, terrible movie. However, I was not able to really put my finger on what aspect of the movie made me dislike it so much. Let’s get over the good parts of the movie - it was nice to see F1 cars on the big screen, Brad Pitt looked cool in racing gear. End of good part.

First of all, there is no such thing as a safe accident in Formula One. It made me very uncomfortable when the movie treated the accidents engineered by Sonny Hayes so casually. As long-time viewer, I have seen how respectful drivers are of each other while continuing to push for victory in a most dangerous sport. The only exception, in my time, being Michael Schumacher who was easily the worst driver in terms of being human that I have ever seen. Even he was penalised for the accidents he engineered but Sonny Hayes just kept on driving. 

The second issue I have with the movie is that the tactics are so juvenile. When someone begins to play chess for the first time, they focus only on their moves, not factoring in what the opponent will do in response. F1 makes the same mistake. Formula One is a sport that attracts the best brains in the business. Be it in the area of building cars, race tactics, or even just changing tires, only the very best in the world get to be in the pitlane. But in the movie, none of the other teams react to Sonny’s tactics. 

Then there is the backstory. Sonny Hayes left Formula One after a major accident. It is hard to believe that the very same person will initiate accidents as a tactic in a race - not just once but multiple times. The story just doesn’t hold up.

I’d like to also touch on the treatment of women in the movie. So we are shown one woman who is given a key role in the team but in reality all she has to do is look pretty and fawn over Sonny. It’s like the boss’ child being given a designation and an office in the company while having no real responsibilities. Oh the cliche!

Every great sports movie has one thing in common - they capture the essence of the sport. The F1 movie fails miserably at this, while giving us a cliche-ridden story of a petulant, self-centered has-been who thinks he knows better than everyone else. I’m not a psychiatrist or psychologist, but I think that was the reason for Sonny Hayes’ failure at racing - he was a self-centered sob. 

As for the movie, it is everything that F1 is not. It doesn’t in any way celebrate the glory of a sport in which a participant can die in training. The sport deserved better than this. Oh wait, we did get that movie, it's called Rush.