In the disco era, there was nothing more rock ’n’ roll than a
Formula 1 driver. They rolled out of bed, untangled their driving suit from their
one night stand’s underwear, sped to the track, downed a shot, chased it with
some champagne, puffed some weed and off they went in their little “coffin with
wheels.” The patch on their driving suit reads, “Sex: Breakfast of Champions.”
Maybe they weren’t all like this in the mid-1970s, but James Hunt
was a unique creature, especially in Ron Howard’s Rush, an incredible
analysis of one of F1’s most epic racing feuds. The film is told from two
points of view: one from British driver Hunt (Thor’s Chris Hemsworth) and the other from Austrian virtuoso Niki
Lauda (Daniel Brühl). Other than being fantastic drivers, the two couldn’t be
more different. Hunt, handsome and charming, walked around the pits without his
shoes on. Lauda, exacting and talented, probably slept in his. The Austrian orbited
around an all-consuming singularity — winning. Hunt’s motivation was simpler:
defeating Lauda.
One of the more rewarding aspects of Rush is how Howard treats these two figures — the charismatic Hunt,
and Lauda, dubbed “King Rat” by the other drivers — with such gentle compassion
and careful framing. He likes them both, and it shows in their separate
sequences, as well as in the kinetic racing scenes they share. A shrink could write
psychological profiles on audience members’ favoring of one driver over the
other. “So you like Hunt, which means you are wild and passionate, capable of
throwing the rules out the window and flying by the seat of your pants.” Or, “You
identify with Lauda because you don’t care what people think about you and you feel
that caution and restraint are admirable qualities.” The movie is a litmus test
for your own attitudes about competition and winning.
It’s also an engrossing story. It begins in Formula 3, where Hunt
and Lauda begin their rivalry. Hunt seems to thrive by instinct alone; Lauda by
knowing his engine and knowing the tracks he’s racing on. They immediately
dislike each other, which is magnified exponentially when Lauda buys his way
onto a Formula 1 team. “You can do that!?” Hunt groans to his team. Before
long, Hunt’s on his own Formula 1 team and the rivalry continues.
Lauda is the better driver, but Hunt has style; if Lauda plays
classical, then Hunt plays jazz. Their opposing methods are clearly evident at
the German Grand Prix, a beastly 14-mile track called the Nürburgring, which
sounds like someplace very evil in a J.R.R. Tolkien book. “A place of shadow,”
Gandalf would say. Lauda protests the race citing weather concerns, but the
other drivers think it’s a ruse to cut a race from a season that Lauda is
likely to win. They all balk at his protest and the race continues amid dangerous conditions. Midway through the race,
Lauda is in a nasty accident that nearly kills him. His car spins out and hits
a wall, trapping him inside leaping gas-fed flames. You can YouTube the real
footage of this crash, but it’s terrifying. The Rush version is only slightly less grisly, if only because that’s
an actor and pyrotechnics and not a real human being inhaling fire as he fights
seat restraints.
I’m giving away too much of the movie, but if you’re still
reading this, it’s likely you’re a F1 fan and already know what happens. Lauda
goes through an intense (and abbreviated) recuperation, while Hunt goes on and
wins a bunch of races. In the end, it all comes down to the Japanese Grand Prix
at the base of Mt.
Fuji
The technically proficient Howard, who reinvented fire for Backdraft and space movies for Apollo 13, does little for racing
cinematography in the first half of Rush.
The shots, while thrilling and lively, don’t reinvent driving or race cars, not
like John Frankenheimer’s Grand Prix
did in 1966. Many of the shots involve static setups of cars careening around
corners, or blurry side-by-side shots of F1 cars zipping down tracks. In a
word, the races are bland. They do get much better, though, especially during
the pivotal Nürburgring and 
Better yet are the performances by Hemsworth and Brühl, who rise
to the challenge of playing these complicated men with their dangerous hobbies.
Now that he’s been Marvelized as Thor, I forget that Hemsworth can really act.
And terrifically, too. He has a toe-tapping montage set to the Spencer Davis
Group’s hit “Gimme Some Lovin’” and a sequence where we see his method of
memorizing every turn and gear shift of a track. The wonderful Olivia Wilde has
a small thankless role as his wife, who can't sustain him in his wreckless phases so she jets off to have an affair with Richard Burton. Brühl, who most will remember as the Nazi sniper and propaganda poster boy from Inglourious Basterds, is something to behold here. He has a
scene set in the Italian countryside that is just splendid. It begins when a
pair of Italian Ferrari fans (Lauda drove for Ferrari at the time) insist he
drive their car after his breaks down. They sit in the back of their own car grinning like fools as Lauda pilots the jalopy around hairpin turns and up country hills.
This is an incredible picture, but my only concern for Rush is that people won’t see it. It
happened with Cinderella Man,
Howard’s 2005 Depression-era boxing movie. It was a great movie, but it didn’t
have an audience. After several miserable box office weekends, the studio told
theaters to start issuing refunds to customers who didn’t like the film. The
idea was that it would get butts in the seats, and then they were unlikely to
ask for a refund because, after all, Cinderella
Man was a fantastic movie. I’m very curious who the audience is for Rush. Formula 1’s largest audience is
not in the United States ,
which largely prefers NASCAR and light beer over F1’s more challenging style of
racing.
My hope is that non-racing fans discover the movie for its
complex character studies, solid story and authentic setting. And if you like
racing, well, then there’s a bit of racing here, too. Just a smidge.
