Eavesdropping At The Movies

Hollywood collaborates with the FIA, the motorsport governing body, to try to convince us that Formula One is not, in fact, televised Microsoft Excel, but actually very exciting indeed. To this end, it brings in accomplished genre action director Joseph Kosinski, star Brad Pitt, and every cliché under the sun. And it's great fun. There's hardly anything realistic about this story of a sixtysomething has-been given an unexpected shot at glory in racing's most prestigious competition, despite the extraordinary effort that's been made to evoke the world of F1, including shooting during real races and race events, with real drivers filling the scenes and even the real commentary team of Crofty and Brundle talking us through the action. The ironic curse of such detail is that the audience most attuned to recognising it is precisely that which will take issue with the film's inaccuracies; José, on the other hand, doesn't know F1 from a hole in the ground, and has no such problem. We discuss the incredibly intense