Four stars. Rating: R, for profanity, nudity, sexual content, brief drug use and disturbing images
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.27.13
Friends tell you what you want to
hear. Enemies tell you what you need to know.
Director Ron Howard’s Rush isn’t merely the fact-based account of an intriguing sports rivalry; it’s also
the most exciting auto racing movie to roar into theaters since 1971’s Le
Mans ... which, given Steve McQueen’s passion for authenticity and the superb
efforts of cinematographers René Guissart Jr. and Robert B. Hauser — not to
mention a team of five (!) editors — is high praise indeed.
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| The calm before the storm: No love is lost between rival racers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth, foreground left) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), each determined to out-drive the other en route to a Formula 1 World Championship. But that isn't the whole story by any means: Their saga is the stuff of sports legend. |
No matter. Howard’s collaborators
— cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and editors Daniel P. Hanley and Mike Hill
— are up for the challenge. They’re also given a sensational assist by sound
designers Danny Hambrook and Markus Stemler, whose ear-splitting attention to
detail delivers everything except the pungent, eye-watering stench of
high-octane fuel. Which you’ll probably imagine anyway.
But while the visceral exhilaration
is palpable, it’s mere backdrop; this film gets its emotional heft from the
fascinating narrative crafted by British scripter Peter Morgan, whose
well-deserved Academy Award nominations for Frost/Nixon and The Queen — not
to mention his work on The Last King of Scotland, The Damned United and
quite a few others — demonstrate considerable skill when it comes to sketching
characters through well-composed dialogue.
James Simon Wallis Hunt (played
by Chris Hemsworth), British to the core, and Austrian Niki Lauda (Daniel
Brühl) meet — and immediately clash — as ambitious Formula 3 drivers. They
couldn’t be more different: Hunt is a womanizing, hedonistic toff who wears
flamboyant aristocratic superiority like a cloak, while Lauda is solemn, remote
and blunt to the point of insolence. Hunt is the pluperfect London playboy,
Lauda the Teutonic precision; neither apologizes for his behavior, or would
think of doing so.
Hunt loves the champagne-hazed
thrill of victory, and is happiest when posing for photographs as he clutches
an award. Lauda quite famously gave his trophies to a local garage, as
“payment” for having his car washed and serviced.
But they both take racing
seriously, albeit from different sensibilities. Hunt is as bold and reckless on
the track as in real life, embracing the challenge for its romantic,
death-defying aura; Lauda, meticulous to a fault, calculates odds and works
them to his favor. Hunt relies on the largess of sponsors he can impress; Lauda
drives mechanics crazy by ordering design changes ... which inevitably prove
advantageous.
As a result, Morgan’s script
focuses on the attitude of racing, as much as the sport itself. At a time when drivers
were expected to die every season — as Brühl’s Lauda informs us, in his dryly
ironic, off-camera narration — professional racers truly were a breed apart.
(It could be argued that NASCAR, with its ever-safer vehicles and protective
body gear, has stripped some of the rogue spirit from auto racing.)
