PUGS REVIEWS: F1

Welcome to the world’s longest commercial for a sport for commercials.

[DISCLAIMER: My favourite car films are 2 Fast, 2 Furious and The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift. Take that as you will.]

Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick) keeps the wheels on the ground this time around and introduces us to the sport we’re all too poor to be a part of.

Brad Pitt plays the cougar's dream; a van-life drifter with jewellery that’s neither gold nor silver and a shirt unbuttoned to sail him to the next adventure. What’s he running from? Can this wild creature be tamed?

Unfortunately, Brad Pittstop appears to have spent more time on (admittedly skux) card and ball tricks than he did putting any kind of real emotion in his lines. He was hot though; when he got in an ice bath my partner let out an audible vocalisation. Beauty.

The complete lack of feeling in Tat-Pits' delivery was highlighted by the remaining cast acting as though the theatre scout's just walked in on their high school rehearsal. How do you make Tyler Durden and Anton Chigurh mates and still manage to bore me? The yarns between adults felt more rigid than any interaction with a woman I had before I turned 14. That's saying a lot.

I have a hell of a lot of respect for the cameraman’s attempts to make me spew in my jumbo popcorn. There was a tangible feeling that the slightest wrong move could cause death, or worse, a DNF. The use of real F1 tracks, drivers and events as a backdrop to the story was nothing to be sneezed at - but with a cyclical plot of race, drama, race, drama, race, drama, that’s a hell of a lot of not-action.

There's also a subplot about women in Formula 1 that I won’t spoil. What I will say is that without knowing any of the real issues within this particular code, some of the character motivations and actions in F1 came across as contradictory and actually managed to confuse and/or piss off my viewing party.

Before viewing, a mate told me this movie would sell me on watching real F1. We don’t talk anymore. Every bit of drama and rule-breaking that can happen, just happened. Now I'm supposed to watch a regular race where everyone’s following the rules? If the film plot on your chosen sport is about someone going against every part of it, I’ve got bad news for you.

This movie made F1 look sick and slick. Sadly, that wasn’t enough for me to give a f***.

2/5