Back in 1990, Jerry Bruckheimer had a can’t lose idea – what if he took all the basics from the smash hit fighter jet movie, Top Gun, and just transfered it all over to the breakneck, white knuckle world of racing. He brought over the same director in Tony Scott and with composer Hans Zimmer, attempted to do the double with wheels instead of wings. They ostensibly failed.
25 years later it seems that history has repeated itself as director Joseph Kosinski, flying high on the overwhelming success of Top Gun: Maverick has come up with a suspiciously familiar idea. Along with Bruckheimer and Zimmer, he’s decided to take the g-force and thrust of the world of fighter jets and once again attempt to transfer it to the track while simultaneously copying Maverick’s basic storyline of an old pro having to butt up against the ego and inexperience of the young.
So what’s the difference between 1990 and 2025? Well, for one thing, F1 certainly has some much better tricks up its sleeve than Days Of Thunder…
The Apex Grand Prix team isn’t exactly having their best season and if things don’t turn around sharpish, former driver and team owner Ruben Cervantes will soon see the entire thing sold off by impatient board members desperate to recoup their losses. The only way that’s going to happen if Apex manage to somehow win a race, but their star driver, the brilliant rookie Joshua Pierce is far too inexperienced to adequately convey and issues with the car design to technical director, Kate McKenna. In a last ditch effort to save everything, Ruben calls on nomadic racer-for-hire, Sonny Hayes who, in his youth, had F1 eating out of his hand before a terrible crash and a fairly sizable gambling addiction forced to to travel the world like Caine from Kung Fu, and then thrash the bollocks off any vehicle he finds himself behind.
Of course, the hiring of a burnout also-ran nipple tweaks the ire of many of the racing team, including team princible Kaspar Molinski and – of course – Joshua himself whose sizable ego is fairly uncomfortable with a guy old enough to be his father come swanning in and giving orders.
At first, things are predictably disastrous which, considering that Apex only has nine races to secure that life saving win, makes things all the more tense. But in an effort to try and panel beat the team into some sort of scoring predicament, Sonny starts to perform all manner of bizarre mid-race tricks and plots in order to try and climb up that winner’s table at almost any cost.
However, sneaky tricks a good for 9th place and a butt load of fines, but it certainly isn’t going to score them that win they so desperately need – but when a horrible accident bizarrely changes their fortunes, already fragile egos go supernova when normal service is eventually returned.
A more cynical person may simply complain that F1 is merely just Top Gun: Maverick with a camera simply bolted to another really fast thing and they may actually have a point that’s further backed up by it’s grizzled veteran getting back into the game plot. However, what that person may be forgetting is that Top Gun: Maverick was absolutely fantastic even without the Tom Cruise-in-a-fighter-jet fuckery that brought all the boys (and girls) to the yard. Yes, the movie may have swapped out Cruise for a similarly well seasoned Brad Pitt and exchanged F/A-18E/F Super Hornets for F1 cars that move like a greased bullet, but it also managed to be a damn good movie while it’s at it.
There’s a temptation with attempting a much used genre to just deliver the same old plot with the same old twists but just upgrade the tech to make the whizzy bits that much more whizzier, but while F1 certainly employs a lot of road tested plot devices (game changing accident, everything counting on the last race, lots of navel gazing over legacy), it flips a lot of those old conventions on its head to keep things feeling surprisingly fresh. For a start, it’s the weathered old dude who is the rule bending wild card as Sonny brings his years of experience on resorting to some pretty shifty tricks to keep Apex in the game, while it’s the younger, more careful Joshua who fumes at the sidelines at this tattooed, van dwelling bum who apparently is nothing short of a fucking alchemist when it comes to speed. Also, the movie isn’t about winning everything, but (not unlike 2023’s Gran Turismo) simply nailing that single triumph to keep the wolves from the racing team’s door. All the pulse pounding scenes of speed are all very well and good (and they really are) everything inbetween them would become an unavoidable slog if it wasn’t an engrossing tale filled with appealing actors. But as the supporting cast include such faces as Javier Bardem, Kerry Condon and Killing Eve’s Kip Bodian brighten up a script that somehow manages to surprise and grip despite having do many familiar elements. It is, of course, the racing that we’re all here to see.
Or should I say, feel. Taking the same method as Top Gun: Maverick by trying to do as much as it can for real, we get arguably some of the greatest racing sequences I’ve ever experienced that will have your entire body quivering with emotion. Watching both Pitt and Idris sat in actual F1 cars while being mercilessly ravaged by g-forces as other, real cars zip around them is legitimately something else and the genuine feeling of propulsion, braking and hurtling round a corner is extraordinary powerful. However, the filmmakers don’t just rest on their laurels just because they’ve got sick, new tech that allows them to strap an IMAX camera onto a car that goes like shit off a shovel and the races are made even better by all including actual in-race plot that sees the drivers try and figure out tactics as they barrel along like generals mid-battle. Even better, even non-fans of F1 will understand (mostly) what’s trying to be achieved as these guys play chess at over 200 mph even though they’re not overly spelled out. In fact, this reaches it peak during the finale where everything comes together to provide a moment where the movie somehow seems to create Duel Of The Fates from The Phantom Menace as an old pro and the youngster team up and take down a Darth Maul who’s ostensibly played by Lewis Hamilton. The stakes are huge, you are utterly immersed and Hans Zimmer’s score may actually be the best the composer’s been in ages (and that’s fucking saying something) and if you don’t emerge from it in some sort of over-emotional fugue state, then maybe cinema is not for you.
Just as daring, audacious and downright death defying as the men sat in the driving seat, F1 manages to avoid all the mawkish self promotion and regurgitated plot that can often blight a racing film (Gran Turismo is a good example), so just sit back and let that hefty run time just rocket by. Of course, with such ground-breaking racing sequences, I’m tempted to say slap off a star if you don’t see this in IMAX, but then if you don’t, you probably deserve a slap around the face and some extended time in the pits.
Expect your heart to do just as much racing…
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
We Have Issues 