By Jeanni Ritchie
I fell in love with Brad Pitt during Legends of the Fall. He remained my celebrity crush through Ocean’s Eleven, Meet Joe Black, and Fight Club.
I bought the Team Aniston t-shirt then felt hypocritical when I loved Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But I loved Pitt, the blonder the hair the better. He could watch milk turn and I’d be mesmerized.
But I hadn’t seen him since his cameo in The Lost City with Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. Or reruns of Friends when he played Rachel-hater Will. I thought he’d taken a break from Hollywood but it seems that in addition to lending to his voice in animated/CGI films like If, he’d served as producer for many other films like the acclaimed If Beale Street Could Talk and the recent Mickey 17.
But now he was playing leading man in the racing flick F1. Pitt played Sonny Hayes, a racing driver who returns to Formula One (F1) after a 30-year absence to save his former teammate Ruben’s underdog team, APXGP, from collapse. In a cast of mostly unknowns, Javier Bardem raised the star power as well.
But this was Pitt’s vehicle, pun intended, and he was in top form. Looking like he’d aged disproportionate to the rest of Gen X, his megawatt smile and perfectly mussed coif reminded us why he was once America’s heartthrob. Pitt still belongs in front of the camera; he can indeed carry a movie!
This movie was more than eye candy and racing though, it was redemption. Sonny Hayes was everyone who’d been kicked in the teeth by life, had regrets, and more than a little chip on their shoulder. You couldn’t help but root for him, maybe because you identified with the comeback or maybe because it was BRAD FLIPPING PITT.
The movie is rebel with a cause…and that cause is to prove something not just to the world but himself as well. He definitely proved to audiences that he’s still one of America’s leading men as well.
Jeanni Ritchie is a contributing journalist from Central Louisiana. She can be reached at jeanniritchie54@gmail.com.
