Supply Chain Blues

Things are falling apart, aren’t they. Nothing works the way it’s supposed to, no one trusts anybody anymore and the dying world Mike Flanagan imagined in the opening movement of The Life of Chuck feels increasingly less imaginary. Jesus, now I’m even more depressed than I was when I started typing this paragraph.

What I meant to say is that stuff isn’t arriving on time, and I’m doing my best to catch up to this month’s bounty of new releases. For every disc that turned up two weeks early, there were others that didn’t reach me until on or after their street date. It’s a lot, so I’ll break them up into two editions of Shiny Things – and let’s start with last week’s big studio titles, F1 and Nobody 2.

In terms of functionality, I’d describe both Joseph Kosinski’s racing picture and Timo Tjahjanto’s action sequel as meat-and-potatoes movies, in that they give the audience precisely what they came for. Both have been made by professionals, and meet the standards they set for themselves; the difference is that one is prime rib and the other is wagyu.

F1 – packaged as F1: The Movie everywhere but on-screen – is the fancier one, a massive all-star production with a nine-figure budget courtesy of Apple’s feature-film division, which was clearly chasing both a theatrical blockbuster and an awards-contender with this one. (And it looks like that’ll be the case, though I suspect the awards glory will be limited to a handful of technical categories.)

Starring Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes, an aging racecar driver tapped by his old circuit buddy Rubén (Javier Bardem) to revitalize his struggling F1 team – which means mentoring the gifted but undisciplined star driver Joshua Pierce (Damson Idris) in the ways of strategy and patience – it’s a straight-up story about a washed-up hero getting a second chance, his hard-won experience being of more value than any dumb corporate wisdom or computer simulation. Old guys know stuff, man! That’s the deal!

And yeah, it’s basically Kosinski remaking 2022’s Top Gun: Maverick, set in a different world of macho daredevils who live to Go Fast and Do Stunts. The only difference is the lack of personal history between its rival racers; here, the friction between Sonny and Joshua comes from the kid perceiving the older guy as an interloper, and he’s not wrong. But Sonny’s not wrong about what it takes to win F1 races, either – even if his instincts go against everything data-driven engineer Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) believes.

When F1 opened earlier this summer, the general response from critics was “yep, it’s what you expect,” and I don’t know that I can add much beyond that. It is a pretty basic movie, with a script that specializes in declarative conversations in which characters tell each other their motivations and goals pretty much constantly, with additional exposition provided by endless news programs that tell us what’s happening in the moment.

The driving scenes are immersive and gripping, thanks to Kosinski’s regular DP, Claudio Miranda, applying the up-close cockpit approach of Maverick to make us believe Pitt and Idris really are speeding around crowded racetracks. Editor Stephen Mirrione deserves some credit both here and in general, because even at 155 minutes F1 feels fleet and efficient.

And somehow, despite all the machinery at work in front of and behind the camera, F1 also feels like an actors’ picture. Pitt channels his confidence and charm into a part that feels like it was written for a slightly younger Jeff Bridges (complimentary), while Bardem turns up here and there to provide a shot of slightly manic energy to balance Condon’s caution. Condon is also there to be Pitt’s love interest, despite being two decades younger, but even that feels like the sort of thing you expect in a movie like this.

All of F1 has that new-car smell, if that makes sense; everything is glossy and polished, everyone is fashionable and appealing, and even the supporting players get a moment to look cool. There’s nothing in it to offend or upset anyone, the swearing is kept to an absolute minimum, and despite a couple of curve balls the plot works out pretty much the way you think it will. Could it have used some complexity? Absolutely. But it isn’t stupid, either. That counts for a lot.

Nobody 2 isn’t stupid either, except in one way that counts: It understands how ridiculous it is that there would be another Nobody movie, and leans into it. Which is to say that there is no reason for Bob Odenkirk’s suburban murderman Hutch Mansell and his family to get roped into a second round of mob mayhem, but that’s why we’re all here.

Not long after the events of the first film, Hutch has gone back to work as a murderman full-time, paying off the debt incurred by setting fire to that big pile of Russian mob money. And once again, his day-to-day grind is alienating him from his wife Becca (Connie Nielsen) and kids Brady (Gage Munroe) and Sammy (Paisley Cadorath).

To make up for his emotional absence, Hutch takes them all – along with his father (Christopher Lloyd) – to Plummerville, the resort town where he remembers having a nice time as a kid. And within moments of arriving, Hutch pisses off the sheriff (Colin Hanks), his boss (John Ortiz) and his boss’ boss (Sharon Stone), blowing up any hope of family fun time. But on the upside, now he can kill a whole bunch of goons.

Is it still a John Wick remix? Yep! But swapping out Keanu Reeves’ poise and intensity for Odenkirk’s unassuming, cranky presence puts a delightful spin on the close-quarters action – and gives the creative team license to go larger than life in an entirely different way. Half the fun of Nobody was watching the guy from Mr. Show and Better Call Saul throw down against wave after wave of armed goons, showing us flickers of temper breaking through his domesticized persona rather than walking through the world in a state of sustained fury. It let us perceive Hutch as an underdog even when we know he’s going to pulverize everyone in the room – and in the sequel, that gives Odenkirk the elasticity to throw out pissy commentary (“Well, now no one gets the pole!”) in the middle of a scene and get a laugh from left field.

Stepping into the world created in 2021 by Ilya Naishuller, The Night Comes for Us director Timo Tjahjanto escalates things just a little bit, amping up the complexity of the fight scenes as well as the squishiness of the violence by about fifteen or twenty percent. (One big action scene plays out on a riverboat in broad daylight; that’s fun.) And returning screenwriter Derek Kolstad – working this time with Aaron Rabin – adds a modest twist to the plot this time around, with Hutch finding an unlikely ally in Ortiz’ middleman. But mostly this is an unapologetic reprise of Nobody 1’s family-first action narrative, with Hutch and his brood – and his dad, and his brother Harry (RZA) – coming together to mow down the people who should know better than to cross them. And yeah, it's awfully satisfying.

Universal’s 4K edition of Nobody 2 supports its razor-sharp presentation (with a very active, occasionally ceiling-shaking Dolby Atmos soundtrack) with a handful of deleted scenes and two brief but enjoyable featurettes: “Nobody 2: The Fight Continues,” an overview at the production with contributions from Odenkirk, Stone, Hanks and Tjahjanto, and “Nobody Does Stunts Like Us,” which centers on Odenkirk’s unlikely reinvention as an action hero and how much he seems to be enjoying all the training and fighting. The same supplements appear on the companion Blu-ray.

The nine production featurettes that make up Warner’s F1 supplemental section are pretty short as well, with most clocking in at about five minutes. (The tour of the shooting locations is almost twice that; I got briefly dizzy.) But what they lack in depth they make up in production value, approaching various elements of the production – a table read, the actors’ training, the technological and creative challenges of shooting an F1 race in a new way, the effects of a key crash sequence, a look at the sound design – with a slick, glossy approach that matches the movie’s aesthetic. The movie looks and sounds great in UHD and Atmos, which is really all that matters.

F1 is available in individual 4K and Blu-ray editions from Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment; Nobody 2 is available in 4K/BD combo and BD-only editions from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Up next: Eddington, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning and Weapons are on the new-release shelves this week, too. Remember new-release shelves? Those were the days. And Friday’s What’s Worth Watching newsletter has some particularly heavy hitters, so if you haven’t already upgraded your subscription maybe you should take a moment to do that, please and thank you.