Thrilling Drama Of 1976 Formula One Motor Racing Championship Rivalry

Rating: 7/10 (18 February 2014)

In the 1970's world of Grand Prix racing, there is an intense rivalry between two top drivers - the intelligent and perfectionist Austrian Niki Lauda, and the charismatic and talented Englishman James Hunt. Things come to a head at the 1976 world championship when both men must come to terms with triumph and tragedy ...
I love motor racing and so in many ways this is a dream movie for me, about one of the most famous and shocking seasons in the sport's history and two of its greatest and most iconic stars. Watching it sometimes seems like it's a made-up Hollywood fantasy - the dashing playboy versus the determined fighter, the high-octane competition that goes down to the wire, the troubled star whose personal life falls apart just as his professional one hits its pinnacle, the horror crash halfway through and the resultant fightback. If you were going to write a race car movie this is what you'd do, but astonishingly not only is it all completely true but the movie's real strength is its drama - the depiction of how the events affect the two drivers. When Lauda tells Hunt that watching him win races from his hospital sick bed was the primary motivation for his recovery, he is speaking with incredible honesty, straight from the heart. Here is man whose very essence was to beat everyone and be best in his chosen field, and no amount of pain or circumstance was insurmountable for him. Equally, on a technical level, the movie is an astonishingly beautiful recreation of the period - the cars, the sets, the visual effects, the costumes and every other aspect of the design contributing to an amazingly detailed Formula One time capsule. The recreation of Lauda's infamous and terrible crash at the Nurburgring and its aftermath is astonishingly painful to watch, and the movie documents every detail of the men's often bitter rivalry with incisive drama, humour and precision. Both Hemsworth and Brühl are marvellous in the leads, although for me Brühl is just mesmeric; he strikes an almost perfect balance between impersonating Lauda's unique mannerisms and finding the drama and passion within the man. In many ways it's an unusual two-piece picture which almost forces you to side with one of these heroes, and in my case it's Lauda - his return to racing at the Italian Grand Prix, a mere six weeks after a near-fatal crash and in unimaginable pain his subsequent fourth-place finish is in my view arguably the greatest sporting achievement of all time. Extremely well written by Peter Morgan, with a great jangling tense score by Hans Zimmer, this independent British-German-US production by Working Title Films is one of the best motor racing movies ever made. Filmed mostly in the UK, notably for race fans at Donington, Brands Hatch and Cadwell Park.