The 'sports movie' tends to be a
troubled genre; one usually marred by predictability and all too
willing to eschew the human spirit behind the sport. Such is not the
case in Ron Howard's Rush, which takes us inside the world of
1970s Forumla One racing for a look at a legendary rivalry bewteen
two champion motorists. The film is less interested in impressing us
with their achievements, as it is in discovering what drives the
drivers.
One is James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth);
with his roguish good looks, cocky charm and playboy antics, he seems
the spitting tabloid image of a stereotypical racing superstar. It
helps that he has the God-given skill and renegade aggression behind
the wheel to back up his boasts in front of a microphone. The other
is Nikki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl); more prickly and misanthropic, but
with a sharply analytical mind that serves him remarkably well in the
garage and on the pavement.
For all their superficial differences, these two titans of the speedway do share some common track besides just being world class athletes at the peaks of their careers. Both are driven by a combination of their healthy (or unhealthy) egos, their thirst for glory, and by some mutual 'respect/resent' ('love/hate' doesn't quite seem to hit it) relationship with each other.
Their open arrogance towards each other
may lead to many tenuous altercations both on and off the track –
Lauda delights in lording his superior intellect over Hunt, while
Hunt's always at the ready with a barbed quip comparing Lauda to a
rat, be it for his bucktoothed appearance or for squeaking up about a
miniscule technical infraction on Hunt's car – but there's an
undeniable sense that as professionals, Hunt and Lauda rely on each
other for the bar-raising motivation that allows them to dominate
their sport the way they do.
Hemsworth and Bruhl are excellent in
this respect. They ground their dickish characters with enough
empathy to make the audience care about them equally, for which
credit should also be paid to Ron Howard's even handed direction.
Critics have often been divided as to whether Howard's anonymity of
filmmaking style is an asset or a deficiency, but here it proves
appropriate for chauffeuring Peter Morgan's script through the
familiar rhythms of a sports movie.
Besides, Rush already has an
auteur stylist behind the camera in the form of director of
photography Anthony Dod Mantle, who invigorates the racing sequences
with his typically inventive flare, putting the camera not only
inside the cockpits, but inside the engine, under the wheels, in
front of the spoilers, and even in the drivers' helmets. Also of note
is the stellar sound mix which deftly layers in several commentator
voice tracks and Hans Zimmer's bassy score alongside the earsplitting
revs, roars, and screeches of the race itself.
*** out of ****
