F1 equally grips the track and your pulse 

F1 is Apple’s latest big budget film, and their most successful to date. It stars Brad Pitt as a race car driver at the end of his career, who gets a second chance at racing glory. A fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants action film, this one deserves to be seen on the big screen.

Sonny Hayes lives out of his van and travels from race to race, but it seems to be the life that he wants. He’ll race anything with wheels, and is en route to Mexico to race Baja when he is approached by former friend Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem). Ruben and Sonny were up-and-coming teammates 30 years ago in F1 racing before a crash nearly killed Sonny. He stepped away from the sport despite being highly touted at the time, and never returned to F1. Ruben went on to be successful and is currently team owner of F1 racing team APXGP, though after a few years, the team has yet to win a race and Ruben is facing a jittery board of trustees ready to oust him for new leadership. He is there to enlist Sonny for help.

Sonny has enjoyed his nomadic lifestyle and has demons in his closet, but he is not going to turn down an old friend. Ruben wants to bring him in to race his # 2 car and to mentor the team’s # 1 driver, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Joshua is very talented but also very young and inexperienced. Sonny may no longer have the reaction times of a young man, but he has a lifetime of experience to teach Joshua how to be a smarter driver. The film follows the final 9 races of the season, as Sonny and Joshua butt heads, and Ruben prays for a victory to both keep his job and also to keep him afloat, as he has invested every dime into the team.

Some films in this genre only find excitement on the track, and that is obviously where most of the action lies. While those films are exciting, if there isn’t enough drama when there isn’t any racing, they aren’t “firing on all cylinders.” F1 has it all, from the extremely tense, first-person view of flying down the track at 200+ miles an hour, to the relationships behind the scenes between the racers, owners, pit crew, and support. The film clocks in over 2 1/2 hours, but I didn’t feel it at all, and those hours flew by faster than the cars on the screen. And as I said, see it in theaters, because your heart will pound as you feel those engines rev through the theater speakers, and it will take your breath away when they peal down the straightaway towards the finish line. ★★★★½