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How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 12 September 2013
This article is a review of RUSH. |
“It’s a wonderful way to live and it’s the only way to drive. The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel,” James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth)
In a way RUSH has all the ingredients for why many go to the pictures: Glamour, adrenaline, good-looking protagonists, sex, nudity, thrills and grounding in reality. Forget the TV movies-of-the-week that have come to epitomise director Ron Howard’s career: A BEAUTIFUL MIND, APOLLO 13, CINDERELLA MAN, etc. Here, we have a gripping rivalry, based on a true story, full of banter and incendiary performances – whether smouldering or burning up the screen or both.
In a way RUSH has all the ingredients for why many go to the pictures: Glamour, adrenaline, good-looking protagonists, sex, nudity, thrills and grounding in reality. Forget the TV movies-of-the-week that have come to epitomise director Ron Howard’s career: A BEAUTIFUL MIND, APOLLO 13, CINDERELLA MAN, etc. Here, we have a gripping rivalry, based on a true story, full of banter and incendiary performances – whether smouldering or burning up the screen or both.
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The world is 1970s Formula One race car driving. We are told 25 drivers start every year, and of that number two die. A one in 12.5 chance of not making it to another year is a sobering statistic. The stakes have been established. It’s August 1976, through voice-overs from sporting antagonists, James Hunt and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), we discover this is their crunch race. Then we zoom back to 1970 and the beginnings of their careers in Formula Three. The personality traits of the two are quickly established: Hunt the partier and womaniser, and Lauda the perfectionist and grafter. The English charmer and the Austrian purist. After the one-two duds of HEREAFTER and 360, writer Peter Morgan turns back to what he excels at – historical duelling:
- Tony Blair and Gordon Brown in THE DEAL,
- Tony Blair and Elizabeth II in THE QUEEN, and
- Tony Blair and Bill Clinton in THE SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP.
How high the speculation to reality ratio is, is anybody’s guess, but the above trio make for enthralling viewing. Morgan applies his skillset to these two motor racing titans. The extrapolations of their personalities and the events in their lives in a two hour time frame was always going to be heightened. And if you take proceedings with a pinch of salt, there is much enjoyment to be had.
Hemsworth’s Hunt is easy to like, all swaggering caddishness. Brühl though takes the actor honours by a pip, by making a cold, driven, non-people person eminently relatable. And while RUSH eventually descends into tired sports movie tropes, it is the aftertaste that is worth savouring:
- Who is the real champion?
- What sacrifice is worth making for your profession?
- Without such personas would sports be as engaging?
“Nursey, men love women, but even more that that they love cars,” Alexander Hesketh (Christian McKay)
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