Catch It While You Can

Rating: 8/10 (2 November 2013)

Biographical sports drama Rush tracks the strictly competitive rivalry between Formula One racers James Hunt and Niki Lauda during the 1970s.
Even before you've arrived at the starting line, there may be understandable scepticism on whether Rush is really a race you wish to run with. However, like Moneyball (2011) before it, I was pleasantly surprised at how investing a story about a sport I know nothing about and care nothing for could be. Cars are useless without people to drive them. Rush is a vehicle painted with a core theme of the professional and personal consequences of fierce rivalry, between it two primary passengers. Formula One racing is just the fuel to push the vehicle to its eventual destination.
It is a story worth telling, both for those who were spectating during the 1970s, and for those like myself who are still taking driving lessons and didn't know the names Niki Lauda or James Hunt until this film existed. Behind Ron Howard's careful direction and sensitivity to the story, Rush invites its audience to witness the depth of competitiveness that Lauda and Hunt travelled through. Its expertly crafted pace, detail and tone complement the (f)actual events also, with Niki Lauda even expressing his positive reaction to the film's look and accuracy.
Despite a 123 minute run, your legs feel motionless. Rush is a timeless tale in two senses: 1. Its great display of the triumphs and pitfalls that competitiveness can have are accessible and applicable throughout history, throughout the modern world, and probably will be throughout the future 2. The film is so engrossing that not once did I question how much time had passed nor how close we were to the end. Rush has enough continuous momentum to take us to the end of the journey without exhausting emissions, as we cruise through seamlessly to the finish line
With its fantastic editing and storytelling techniques to push the story along without making it feel, dare I say...Rushed, Rush masterfully places its two protagonists in lanes so far apart that only their egos are able to fill the empty space. Like Batman and The Joker, Hunt and Lauda are represented as polar opposites whom were almost destined to become competitors, as it is only their mutual rivalry that fuels their motivation to win. Without one competing with such passion, the other wouldn't have the passion to compete at all.
The story is only complemented further by the enthralling performances of Daniel Brühl (Lauda) and Chris Hemsworth (Hunt), in addition to Olivia Wilde's brief yet brilliant supporting role. Rush's arrival at the finish line is as smooth as the ride that Ron Howard takes us along throughout. Thrilling, investing, interesting and well-made flawlessness, is about all one could request of a biopic that centres around such sensitive source-material. Rush is exciting, frightening but most of all the right thing to catch up to in theatres as its release seems to be on its final laps around UK tracks, so rush to see it. Oh dear I wrote it again.