• Warner Bros. Pictures
• Brad Pitt and Damson Idris in F1.

The four-quadrant-ification of studio theatrical distribution—that sense that everything needs to be a billion-dollar blockbuster—has become so prevalent that many genres ideal for specific demographics have become endangered species. And that notion is not only true of smaller films like romantic comedies; there are other kinds that you only realize are rare when you spot them in the wild. In the case of F1, that type is the "dad movie."

It's tempting to think of "dad movies" as synonymous with "action movies," but you would be mistaken. True, they have a certain energy to them, but they are not so much action movies as movies about men of action—sometimes (but not always) military, sometimes (but not always) covert operatives, sometimes (but not always) athletes. These are the tales that will show up on TNT cable movie slots from now until the end of time, movies like director Joseph Kosinski's Top Gun: Maverick that tick all the boxes for the "dad movie": a sense of danger, a fast pace, present-but-usually-discreet sexuality and a movie star with the charisma to hold it all together.

Kosinski's latest entry into that genre is F1, and it's such a quintessential dad movie that it feels like an act of corporate malpractice on Warner Bros.' part that it wasn't in theaters by Father's Day. The supercharged world of auto racing makes for the perfect milieu as we meet Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), an aging driver whose once-promising career was derailed years earlier by a serious accident, leaving him an itinerant wheelman-for-hire finding work wherever he can. He's approached by Ruben (Javier Bardem), a one-time racing peer who now owns a floundering Formula 1 racing team. That team will be sold out from under Ruben unless the team can win one of the nine remaining races in the F1 season, meaning Ruben needs Sonny and his savvy, both behind the wheel and serving as mentor to promising rookie driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris).

Ehren Kruger's script has an almost ideal structure in the ticking-clock countdown of the remaining races in various exotic locations, plus the kind of sparring-theoretical-teammates dynamic between Sonny and Joshua that owes a debt to Bull Durham. F1 could have stood a little more of the humor that Ron Shelton brought to Bull Durham rather than just having the two men periodically shove one another against walls in frustration, but the stakes are always clear—indeed, clear to a fault, as this is one of those sports movies where the non-stop yammering of the play-by-play announcers assumes not just that you have no prior knowledge of the sport's rules, but that you have no ability to understand the basic information unfolding on the screen in front of you.

Still, it's the kind of sturdy contraption that understands how to put all the pieces together in a way that satisfies on the necessary visceral levels. Kerry Condon—as the racing team's chief engineer, Kate—provides the romantic interest, and she brings enough heft in her performance that she doesn't feel like a token character, plus with enough maturity that pairing her with Pitt doesn't feel icky. There's not an obvious villain per se for most of the running time, making the competition effective as more of a "man against himself" variety. As for the actual race sequences, Kosinski and editor Stephen Mirrione find a sweet spot of conveying the thrill both for a spectator and for the drivers of 200+ MPH racing, and the drama that can emerge during a simple pit stop.

Then there's Brad Pitt, who remains a movie star in a post-movie star world. Just as Kosinski did with Tom Cruise in Maverick, he gives Pitt the opportunity to show a sense of history weighing on a guy who still has plenty of fight left in him. And there's a similar success at allowing his star to bounce that energy off of the rest of the cast, playing the man who always has a strategic plan just a step ahead of everyone else. Even the many quirks F1 gives Sonny—like his propensity for wearing mismatched socks, or his ever-present deck of playing cards—feel like the authentic "don't mess with his routine" stuff of a superstitious veteran athlete. Pitt is always fun to watch, and F1 remains fun to watch along with him. Your dad will approve.