609: F1

[00:00:00] Hello everybody, welcome back to the Film Buds Podcast. This is episode number 609, and my name is Henry. This time I'm going to be tackling F1 The Movie, which came out in 2025. It is directed by Joseph Kaczynski, stars Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Avi Arbardim, Cary Condon, Tobias Menzies, and the synopsis is a Formula One driver comes out of retirement to mentor and team

[00:00:29] up with a younger driver. I really wish I had seen this one in theaters. I didn't get a chance to, and seeing it in IMAX I think would have been awesome. I was really interested to see it because not only Brad Pitt, but I'm a big fan of Joseph Kaczynski. He did Top Gun Maverick, Tron Legacy, Only the Brave, and even though I don't watch racing much in real life, I really enjoy racing movies.

[00:00:54] I think Rush with Chris Hemsworth is still the best. I don't know if that's a hot take or not. Overall, I think this is a very solid film. I've seen it twice now, and it's about at the same level both times. Brad Pitt is great. I think that the last 10 or 15 years he's been doing some of his best work of his whole career. You know, some actors at that age will oftentimes start to wind down their big roles, but he's honestly only getting better and more successful, it seems.

[00:01:23] Some initial strong points. All the racing scenes are amazing. I know that they had to design new cameras and new ways of attaching these cameras to the race cars in order to film it the way that Kaczynski wanted to, which is crazy. But everything from the direction itself, the editing, Hans Zimmer's score is amazing, very propulsive and energetic, emotional, it's fun, really memorable

[00:01:47] theme. The sound design, unbelievably good. Great production design. Brad Pitt also did his own driving in this film. And similar to Tom Cruise and a lot of other action stars, it's really nice to see the star themselves doing the stunt work. Some of the only things that bring it down a little bit is... So the story itself is very familiar, and warning, there will be spoilers, but it's about

[00:02:13] Brad Pitt's character, Sonny Hayes, who his career kind of ends abruptly, and he's desperate to get back in the game. He doesn't want money, necessarily. He just wants to race again, to win again. There's this younger racer who is all about the modern technology, and he wants Instagram followers to help boost his awareness, and he's very much striving for the money. First, Sonny is kind of

[00:02:38] disregarded by the people in the business still, and then he starts winning, he starts helping the new guy, then they butt heads, and then they come together again, and eventually there is this team victory. That's fine. I have no problem with that at all. It's always great to watch a sports film that just kind of hits the right beats. It's inspiring. The underdog wins in the end. However, in this case,

[00:03:03] I don't understand why they felt the need to have it be over two and a half hours. Like, it's almost 240, and I just, I don't think it needed to be that long. The racing scenes all could have stayed, but I think you could have cut a few plot points that are a little too familiar from this, and would have lost nothing. Maybe make it more 210, 215, maybe even two hours. There were just points in the middle that I was

[00:03:28] thinking, man, we still have like an hour and a half left in this thing. One little sidebar, the screenwriter, Aaron Kruger, he wrote the first four Transformers films, and he also co-wrote Top Gun Maverick with Kaczynski, and it's interesting to look at how, because I think that script, I think F1 is a very, very solid script, very well-rounded, well-balanced, but then you look at Transformers,

[00:03:54] and those scripts are horrendous. And I think that really shows how much a director, a producer, can influence the final script. There are sequels already in the works. I don't know if it's going to be all following Brad Pitt's character, if it's going to become like a cinematic universe. I'm not sure. I'm definitely up for it, because it's rare that you have a fairly standalone blockbuster that is

[00:04:19] not necessarily attached to a previous IP. Like, it's not a comic book film, it's not based off a video game, and it's a crowd-pleaser, yes, but it's a very, very well-made crowd-pleaser. A couple other small things, I really liked those sequences with Brad Pitt running with the Pitt crew, and him trying to motivate them and build the team up. And I guess for better and for worse, it never gets that

[00:04:45] emotional. F1 feels, ironically, more machine-like. I think it maybe thinks it's saying more than it is, but it's not really saying that much about anything. It's just a wild ride. Heavy 4 out of 5.