In F1: The Movie, the fictional racing team APXGP is on its last legs: Its young driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris), is impulsive and green; its owner, Ruben (Javier Bardem), is at his wit’s end; the tech director, Kate (Kerry Condon), can’t figure out how to make a car that’s not a “shitbox.” There’s only one person who can save them, and that’s rugged American cowboy Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt). Hayes brings an unconventional energy to the AXPGP team: Though not fast enough to wind up on the podium, Hayes opts for an aggressive style of racing that involves crashing and disrupting other drivers on purpose to give Pearce the edge he needs to place. These sequences are some of the film’s most thrilling but left me wondering if real F1 drivers were really hopping in those tiny cars just to crash them on purpose.
