Chris Hemsworth could turn anyone into a voyeur and race car drivers are so ooh, vroom vroom. Rush, a steamy pulse-pumping thrill of a flick, is directed by the usually non-sensual clean cut Okie Ron Howard (Frost/Nixon, A Beautiful Mind). It’s a surprise but a good one. Howard’s 1977’s Crime Theft Auto was meh. Peter Morgan (Frost/Nixon) wrote the screenplay for Rush and whoa, it’s a great one.
Rush chronicles the 1976 Formula One championship between arch rivals James Hunt (Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl). Viewers get to peer inside the personal lives of these fascinatingly intense characters and vicariously live their courage. The notion of fearless in the case of race drivers might better be described as stupid self-destruction and an addiction to adrenalin, but either way, it’s exciting.
The story brings to mind the 2011 riveting documentary Senna about race car driver Ayrton Senna because it has the same ingredients: true story, race car driver, danger and drama. Senna, like James Hunt, lived the kind of life Americans have always romanticized. In reality, yes, there are mind blowing highs but what goes up miserably crashes.
Ron Howard said, “If the story weren’t true, nobody would believe it.” He’s right. These guys are so extreme with a laser focus to beat their opponent that it becomes a nearly psychotic contest that pushes them a sliver from the breaking point, both physically and emotionally.
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The compulsion to drive fast is the only thing Hunt and Lauda had in common though. Hunt is charisma embodied, a ladies man with a rock star life. Hemsworth is so hot you can expect swooning onscreen and in the movie theater.
Lauda isn’t a bad looking dude but he’s no James Hunt. Lauda’s social skills are so bad he seems borderline autistic. Lauda is brusque and his fetish for precision lends itself to grandeur. He fancies himself a superior race car designer than say, Ferrari, and he declares it in a most off-putting way.
Like so many successful athletes, these two drivers have carved their lives into a myopic mission to be the best. The movie gives a nice slice of life in the 1970s, when, as Ron Howard said, “Sex was safe and driving was dangerous.”
The movie leads up to a dramatic finish that won’t disappoint. Olivia Wilde stars as Suzy Miller the long-suffering love of reckless Hunt and Alexandra Maria Lara plays Lauda’s worried wife Marlene.
Rush opens September 27, 2013. Action thriller drama. Rated R. 123 minutes.
