The pleasures of F1 are engineered to bypass the brain. Its muscular and thrilling and zippy, even though at over two-and-a-half hours long, it has a toy dump trucks worth of plot. Sonny ( Brad Pitt ), a 50-something driver who spun out in the 90s, agrees to compete in the globes most prestigious racing event to salvage his reputation and APX, the failing team of his buddy Ruben (Javier Bardem). What hes really chasing is a sense of fulfillment he cant, and wont, catch. It eludes him like a mechanical rabbit on a track.
Directed by Joseph Kosinski from a script by Ehren Kruger, F1 has an amiable romance with a likable automotive engineer, Kate ( Kerry Condon ), and a bit of cautionary flag-waving about the financial shenanigans taking place off the track. But really, its built from the same chassis as Kosinkis last movie, Top Gun: Maverick. Theres the A-list reckless elder, his upstart protegee ( Damson Idris ) and a high-octane mission thats damn near impossible, with lots of speedy action intercut with scenes of its alpha male movie star out of his helmet and grinning for fans.
The film opens with a kinetic montage of Sonnys dreams. With a meditation tape on and old nightmares in his head, the images flicker between ocean waves and nerve-racking curves, from zen calm to zen focus. Sonny wakes up, blasts some Led Zeppelin and grabs the wheel at the Daytona Speedway where fireworks explode so close to his dashboard that Florida appears to be under attack. Editor Stephen Mirrione cheekily layers Robert Plants ecstatic moans over a shot of a pit crews air gun having its way with a set of lug nuts.
Straightaway, the energy is so macho that its almost corny. Embrace the tone while allowing the occasional eye roll at Brad Pitts near-mythic modern-day Steve McQueen . Laconic, cocky, stubborn and unapologetic, hes a loner in a sport that requires teamwork. Drivers cant get anywhere without people eager to change all four of their tires in 2.9 seconds.
Sonny must help APX place in the top 10 before investors like Banning (a disarmingly twinkly Tobias Menzies) fire the entire staff. His much younger teammate, Josh (Idris), is also on the chopping block but scoffs at Sonny as though hes Methuselah pushing the first stone wheel. Hes old like really old, like 80, Josh grumbles to his mother, a scene-stealing Sarah Niles , who visibly disagrees: She looks at Sonny like a Popsicle on a hot day. Nevertheless, the squad needs to shift strategies and Sonny is here to take them from pathetic to aggressive. He gets a room of technicians to chant, Combat! Combat!
But the cars arent great. When a Ferrari representative is asked what he thinks of APX, he replies, We dont. In turn, the script barely thinks of Ferrari either, which feels especially brazen as the film was shot on location at nine Formula One Grand Prix events during the 2023 season, from Japan to Mexico to Abu Dhabi. Theres priceless production value in watching Pitt do laps on the real tracks surrounded by real chaos, real drivers and real fans doing the wave. Still, its a bit surreal to hear the announcers obsess over Sonnys high jinks in the back of the pack while ignoring the winners.
The counterargument is that you cant make a villain out of that years actual champion, Max Verstappen , when Sonny drives a lot like him. Both drivers share a nail-gnawing approach to safety that can feel dangerously close to a demolition derby. (Last year, F1 tweaked a rule so that one of his tactics here now results in a disqualification.)
The film itself pulls a couple illegal moves, most gratingly when it orders us to care about Sonnys past spinal injury, only to pivot away from that plot point and show him hurtling over sand dunes. His one big monologue about what racing means to him doesnt land with any impact.
But F1 is on firm ground watching Sonny shake up a sport thats become the worlds most expensive game of chase. Technology has taken over with simulators and treadmills and sensors hunting for spare fractions of a second to eliminate. The film doesnt insult our intelligence by pretending all of these innovations are nonsense they matter just as much as Sonnys mystical connection to the road. For balance, however, he and his love interest, Kate, bond over their old-school hobbies: He jogs, she bikes.
Idris makes his rookie character bristly yet endearing, with the thin-skinned transparency of a generation raised to measure its worth in likes. Joshs aptly named manager, Cashman ( Samson Kayo ), pressures him to spend more time on social media, arguing that in todays plugged-in modern circuit, fame is as good of a career path as getting across the finish line first.
I saw F1 in a screening that was predominantly influencers who didnt seem offended by the movies disdain for vapid self-promotion. Sonny sneers every time he catches Josh doing a phony smile, even when the kid is simply posing for the advertisements theyre both supposedly contracted to do. Instead, we were all swept up by the races themselves, which are honest-to-Goodyear fantastic.
The cinematographer Claudio Miranda keeps the camera fast and low. Sometimes he fills the screen with road, other times he places the lens between the windshield and the wheel so all we can see is Pitts gloved fist jerking around turns. The noises are energizing: tire squeals, engine rumbles and a hip soundtrack once it gets past the classic rock standards. To keep pace, Hans Zimmer has concocted a visceral new growl that rattles our seats.
Race cars and blockbuster movies have a core thing in common: Theyre expensive contraptions made by teams who are painfully aware that they can fine-tune everything and still crash. The average Formula One car costs $20 million. Pitts F1 salary was one-and-a-half times that (and the films overall budget has been estimated between $200 and $300 million). As mechanized as a race or a movie can feel, success or failure hinge on the human element, the hero battling the gremlins in the machine.
Unlike in his earlier Troy years, Pitt is confident having a movie this massive built around him. Sonny is the closest hes come to circling back around to his breakout role in Thelma & Louise as a charismatic cowboy scamp. For decades, he tried to wriggle out of that typecasting to play kooks and himbos. Every time he was advised to play the romantic hero, those roles seemed to pinch him around the collar. But Pitts 2019 Oscar win as the stuntman Clint Booth in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood seems to have finally made him comfortable in the skin of a red-blooded sex symbol. At 61, he seems to have sprouted a new rung of abs.
Yet, Pitt cant resist quirking up the character in ways that dont totally congeal. One scene, hes acting like the Marlboro Man; in another, he reveals a torso littered with doodly Gen-Z tattoos, including a cartoon hot dog shooting finger guns. If thats Sonnys sense of humor, theres no other evidence of it. I adored the costume designer Julian Days avant-garde takes on a plain white shirt fancy textures, loose Tyler Durden-esque cuffs but couldnt imagine Sonny packing any of it in the worn duffel bag on his shoulder. Who cares? Were just here to watch Pitt go.
《F1》的愉悦感被设计成直击感官而非大脑。尽管这部两个半小时的电影剧情简单得如同玩具翻斗车，但它充满力量感、令人血脉贲张且节奏明快。50多岁的桑尼（布拉德·皮特饰）曾是90年代退役车手，他同意参加全球最负盛名的赛车赛事，以挽救自己的声誉和好友鲁本（哈维尔·巴登饰）濒临解散的APX车队。但他真正追寻的是一种永远无法触及的满足感——就像赛道上的机械兔，始终在他前方若即若离。
由约瑟夫·科辛斯基（Joseph Kosinski）执导、埃伦·克鲁格（Ehren Kruger）编剧的《F1》，讲述了一段与讨人喜欢的汽车工程师凯特（凯瑞·康顿饰）之间的温馨浪漫故事，并对赛道外的金融欺诈行为发出警示。但实际上，该片沿用了科辛斯基上一部作品《壮志凌云2：独行侠》的框架结构：一位我行我素的顶级老将（由达蒙·伊德里斯饰演的新秀徒弟），以及一项几乎不可能完成的高强度任务——疾速动作场面与这位摘下头盔向粉丝微笑示意的雄性魅力巨星镜头交替呈现。
影片以索尼（Sonny）梦境中的动态蒙太奇开场。冥想录音带播放着，旧日噩梦在他脑海中盘旋，画面在汹涌海浪与令人神经紧绷的弯道间闪烁，从禅意宁静切换到极致专注。索尼猛然醒来，播放起齐柏林飞艇（Led Zeppelin）的震耳音乐，在代托纳国际赛道紧握方向盘——烟花在仪表盘近处炸裂，恍如佛罗里达州正遭袭击。剪辑师斯蒂芬·米瑞恩（Stephen Mirrione）顽皮地将罗伯特·普兰特（Robert Plant）狂喜的呻吟声，叠加在维修站气动扳手拧紧螺母的画面上。
影片开场便充斥着近乎老套的雄性荷尔蒙气息。观众不妨沉浸在这种基调中，同时偶尔对布拉德·皮特饰演的、堪比现代版史蒂夫·麦奎因（Steve McQueen）的神话式角色报以会心一笑。这个惜字如金、傲慢固执且毫无悔意的角色，在需要团队协作的赛车运动中始终是个独行侠。若没有那些能在2.9秒内完成四轮换胎的狂热技师，车手们根本寸步难行。
桑尼必须在班宁（由托比亚斯·门基斯饰演，带着令人卸下心防的闪烁眼神）等投资人解雇全体员工之前，帮助APX公司跻身前十名。他年轻得多的队友乔什（伊德里斯饰）同样面临被裁风险，却像看待推着第一块石轮的玛土撒拉一般嘲笑桑尼。"他老了——真的老，像80岁那种老，"乔什向母亲莎拉·奈尔斯（抢镜的表演者）抱怨道，而后者明显不以为然：她看桑尼的眼神如同酷暑天盯着根冰棍。尽管如此，团队必须转变策略，而桑尼的任务就是让他们从窝囊废变成斗士。他让整屋技术员高喊："战斗！战斗！"
但这些赛车并不出色。当被问及对APX的看法时，法拉利代表干脆回答：“我们不予置评。”而剧本对法拉利也几乎只字未提——这种刻意忽视显得尤为大胆，毕竟影片是在2023赛季从日本到墨西哥再到阿布扎比的九场F1大奖赛现场实地拍摄的。看着**布拉德·皮特**在真实赛道飞驰，周围是真实的混乱场景、真实的车手和欢呼的人浪，这种制作价值无可估量。但更超现实的是，解说员全程痴迷于描述**桑尼**在车队末尾的滑稽表现，却对冠军车手只字不提。
反驳的观点认为，既然索尼的驾驶风格与当年的实际冠军马克斯·维斯塔潘极为相似，就不能将后者塑造成反派角色。两位车手对安全的漠视令人胆战心惊，其激进程度几乎堪比撞车大赛。（去年F1修改了一项规则，导致维斯塔潘的某项战术如今会直接取消比赛资格。）
影片本身有几处不合逻辑的转折，最令人不适的是它强行让观众关注桑尼过去的脊椎损伤，却又突然抛开这一情节，转而展现他在沙丘间飞驰的场景。而他那段关于赛车意义的长篇独白，也未能引发任何情感共鸣。
但《F1》这部电影稳扎稳打地展现了桑尼如何撼动这项已成为全球最昂贵追逐游戏的赛事。技术已全面渗透其中——模拟器、跑步机和传感器争分夺秒地搜寻可优化的微小差距。影片并未侮辱观众智商，将这些创新贬为无稽之谈——它们与桑尼和赛道之间神秘共鸣同样重要。不过为了平衡，他和恋人凯特通过复古爱好增进感情：他慢跑，她骑车。
伊德里斯（Idris）将他饰演的新手角色塑造得既带刺又讨喜，完美呈现了这代人用点赞数衡量自我价值的敏感与透明。乔什（Josh）那位恰如其名、叫做卡什曼（Cashman，由萨姆森·卡约饰演）的经纪人，不断施压让他多花时间在社交媒体上，并辩称在当今这个高度互联的现代赛道中，成名与率先冲过终点线一样是条可行的职业道路。
我在一场以网红为主的放映会上观看了《F1》，这些观众似乎并未因影片对空洞自我营销的蔑视而感到冒犯。每当桑尼发现乔什假笑时都会嗤之以鼻——即便这孩子只是在为他们签约代言的广告摆拍。相反，我们所有人都被赛车场面彻底征服，那些比赛简直精彩得令人难以置信。
摄影师克劳迪奥·米兰达采用快速低角度的镜头语言，时而让道路充满整个画面，时而将镜头置于挡风玻璃与方向盘之间，使观众只能看到布拉德·皮特戴着赛车手套的拳头在急转弯时剧烈摆动。引擎轰鸣、轮胎尖啸与突破传统摇滚范式的时髦配乐交织成令人血脉偾张的声浪。为匹配这种节奏，汉斯·季默打造出极具冲击力的全新低音咆哮，令观众座椅随之震颤。
赛车与商业大片有一个核心共同点：它们都是由团队打造的昂贵装置，这些团队深知即便对每个细节精益求精，仍可能功亏一篑。一辆F1赛车的平均造价高达2000万美元，而布拉德·皮特在《F1》中的片酬更是达到其1.5倍（该片总预算据估在2亿至3亿美元间）。无论赛事还是电影看起来多么机械化，成败关键仍在于人的因素——就像英雄与机械故障搏斗的故事。
与早年出演《特洛伊》时不同，如今的布拉德·皮特对担纲如此宏大的电影充满自信。他在新片《桑尼》中塑造的角色，最接近其成名作《末路狂花》里那个魅力四射的牛仔混混形象。数十年来，他竭力摆脱这种定型，尝试扮演怪咖或花瓶男。每当被建议出演浪漫英雄时，那些角色总让他如衣领过紧般不适。但2019年凭借《好莱坞往事》中特技演员克里特·布斯的角色赢得奥斯卡后，他似乎终于能坦然接受自己作为热血性感符号的定位。61岁的他，甚至练就了更分明的腹肌线条。
然而，皮特仍忍不住以一些略显割裂的方式为角色增添怪诞色彩。某个场景中，他像万宝路牛仔般硬朗；转场却又露出布满Z世代涂鸦式纹身的胸膛——甚至有个卡通热狗比划手枪手势的图案。若说这是桑尼的幽默感，片中却再无其他佐证。我欣赏服装设计师朱利安·戴对普通白衬衫的前卫改造（华丽面料、松散如《搏击俱乐部》泰勒·德顿风格的袖口），但实在难以想象桑尼会把这些塞进他肩头磨损的帆布行李袋。谁在乎呢？我们不过是来看皮特表演的。
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