Pass the Popcorn review

Rating: 9/10 (13 October 2013)

I'm not very keen on Formula 1, so the news of a biopic about the rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt didn't strike a nerve. When the trailer for the movie appeared, I was even less eager to watch the actual movie since the trailer wasn't particularly good. Eventually, I did see Rush in a full theater on a Saturday night, and absolutely no one in the audience talked throughout the movie. It seemed that everyone, myself included, was amazed by the movie and enthralled by the story. Rush turned out for me to be one of this year's biggest surprise and, for now, one of the best movies of the year.
Rush follows two very different Formula 1 drivers. One is the charming British partyboy/playboy James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), and the other is the determined Austrian perfectionist Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl). As the voice over – from Lauda's point of view – early in the movie says, he's most famously known for two things – the first being his rivalry with James Hunt and the second being his nearly fatal accident in which his face got severely burned. The movie gives us a little backstory about those men, about their backgrounds, personas and family life, and then spends the remaining time depicting the events that happened in the 1976 Formula 1 season.
The best thing about Rush is that it doesn't have any major flaws – it's just a very good movie, as simple as that. Rush is a two men show: Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl make this movie, no other actors or characters other than them are really important to the story. The casting of Hemsworth and Brühl in their respective roles was genius, not only because they look like their real life counterparts, but they feel very natural in their roles and portray their characters with ease. Of course, one may argue that their roles weren't extremely difficult to play, but they do it so believably and smoothly that I think at least one of them may get an Academy Award nomination – if not even both of them. I do hope that this movie introduces Brühl to the mainstream audience some more, since he is a talented actor and it would be great to see him in more mainstream movies.
As for the plot of the movie movie itself, I was somewhat suspicious – can a rivalry between two sports figures be fascinating enough for a two-hour-long movie? Fortunately, I was once again taken by surprise. The story depicted in the movie was rather dramatic, inspiring and engaging – it was intriguing to watch two completely different men approach the same dangerous topic (or should I say problem?) of formula racing. So, yes, there is more than enough drama to fill the length of a two-hour movie. Interestingly, the only thing that's lacking in this sport biopic are the scenes of actual sport – there aren't much racing scenes. Those scenes are used selectively and to push drama forward, never to replace the actual drama. And when they were in the movie, you could see they were magnificently shot, with the just right amount of shaky cam. I would expect nothing less than technical perfection from an experienced director like Ron Howard. The soundtrack in the movie was also good – most of it was composed by the great Hans Zimmer. All in all, Rush is a truly excellent movie about an entertaining story and it features brilliant people who know how to do their job.