A film about fast cars and some seventies nostalgia too.

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2013)

Film is from StudioCanal who also made 'Senna' (2010). The Director is Ron Howard who in 1995 directed 'Apollo 13'.
This film is set in the seventies world of Formula One racing and deals with the rivalry between the drivers Niki Lauda and James Hunt.
Film opens appropriately at the start of a race before giving us some back-story. A slightly-bloodied figure, wearing something like an Apollo space-suit, looking something like a Greek god, enters a hospital. He is James Hunt the racing-driver.
Chris Hemsworth plays the part of James Hunt. This is the first time this reviewer has seen Chris Hemsworth. He looks like Brad Pitt, he looks and sounds like Roger Moore, he would make a very believable Alexander The Great. He has a big presence and dominates in his scenes.
Ever since the gladiators of Ancient Rome, right up to the present time, certain occupations, such as; gladiators, firemen, gangsters, soldiers and racing-car drivers, have held a fascination. Narration by the James Hunt character explains why. The precarious life-style is attractive, exciting and glamorous. It is never explicitly stated why this film is entitled 'Rush'. However the whole film implicitly tells us that it is about the adrenalin-rush that comes from the speed and the life-style. That is what attracts ordinary people and that is what drives the participants. That drug-like addiction to drive and race is shown well.
James Hunt came from a comfortable background, but film shows how enthusiastic amateurs, with a modest amount of money, could build their own Formula Three racing-cars in their garages, and then race them. To succeed as a racing-driver though, required the good luck of being talent-spotted, and then sponsored, by rich backers.
The young James Hunt meets Niki Lauda played by Daniel Bruhl. Lauda is Austrian,his character has a Germanic-like intensity which is the complete opposite of the debonair Hunt. Lauda is obsessed, in a German-engineering way, in the technical side of racing. A workaholic who expects the same from those around him. By contrast Hunt is a playboy, driven to drive, driven to take risks, but also happy to indulge fully in the life-style made possible by his occupation. The interplay between the two drivers is both entertaining and intense. The competition between their different philosophies is at the heart of this drama.
Other drivers are just nameless faces in the background, and it is correct that this is so, as anything else would distract from the central struggle between the two drivers. There is one exception; Clay Regazzoni. He it was, who in real-life, contributed in a very important way to this story. This is not clear in the film but it is right that he features in it. Perhaps this is a tribute to him. Certainly he would be a worthy subject of a film himself. He is played, superbly, by Italian actor Pierfrancesco Favino.
The actor with the top -billing in this film is Daniel Bruhl who plays Niki Lauda. He is the real star of the show. Chris Hemsworth showed well the intensity of the desire to drive by James Hunt, but playing a good-looking sex-symbol did not stretch him to the extent as did the Niki Lauda role for Daniel Bruhl. Much more was asked of him, and he delivered.
This movie was filmed in such a way as to give us a truly authentic rich-colour seventies feel to it. All other seventies details strike an authentic note too. Younger viewers may be shocked to see hospital staff smoking, but yes, smoking was as ubiquitous as it is shown in this film. Cars, vans, haircuts and jackets too, all looked in place. Some contemporary seventies music, placed Scorsese-like, in the background, also hit the spot.
Familiar with the seventies, this reviewer recently revisited them, when I went to see 'The Battle of the Sexes', a documentary about the famous tennis match. I was unsure the details of this event and was happily reminded of the seventies decade. I knew the general story of the documentary 'Senna' and so decided to avoid it. With the 'Rush' story, I knew the general details, but not the finer details, and so was genuinely excited about how things would turn out in the film. The second-half of this film is almost totally about the racing and it is very exciting.
All racing-enthusiasts should enjoy this film. However there is something here for people of all tastes. Director Ron Howard, like he did in 'Apollo 13', has been able to take a true story, and craft it into a great drama. While sexual-athlete James Hunt does engage in a lot of soulless sex (see the mirror), this film does also have time for romance too. Film is at times very emotional, and as the film progresses, the two protagonists find out things about each other, so do we. The recent 'About Time' was a celebration of life, so too is this film. The decade of the seventies was crazy, dangerous and wild. "Ayds helps you slim" was then merely an advertising slogan for a slimming product. James Hunt was the largest of those larger-than-life characters. Niki Lauda by contrast was the process-obsessed technician with an iron-will but perhaps the most human. Brad Pitt's Achilles in 'Troy' (2004), said that the gods envied us for the way we lived our lives. Too true. Enjoy life, enjoy the rush, enjoy this film. Magnificent! 10/10.