Ron Howard's Thrill-Ride will Give You an Adrenaline 'Rush'!

Rating: 9/10 (15 December 2015)

There's been a lot of hype surrounding director Ron Howard's last venture into the world of Formula One racing starring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl. It's safe to report that 'Rush' is a thrill ride that will leave you entertained from moment one.
Rush tells the true story of a single season of Formula One racing in 1976 featuring the intense rivalry between playboy superstar James Hunt (Hemsworth) and science-focused misanthrope Niki Lauda (Brühl). The film progresses as the two work pit their dichotomy of passions for racing against one another on a world stage that eventually leads to Lauda's near-fatal accident and subsequent return to the competition. It's the battle of the Formula One alpha males as the real-life rivalry between the hard-nosed Austrian and the British playboy is given full, glorious vent in Ron Howard's exciting car-race movie.
While Howard follows both men's romantic lives, the focus is really on the love-hate relationship between two bitter adversaries who can't help admiring each other. And what a relationship! It's a duel of dualism, with audiences leaning into the corners to decide whether to ally themselves with Hunt's hedonism or Lauda's hard-headedness. Howard's triumph is that the choice is never an easy one. Howard has a way of wringing human tension from a story even if you have no great interest in or knowledge of the setting. Apollo 13 was set in space; Cinderella Man was (and yet wasn't) about boxing; and Rush mines the noisy, gasoline-and-testosterone world of the Formula 1 circuit in ways that even non-gearheads can get their heads around. As well as brandishing his usual mastery for pacing gutsy dramas, Howard's command over his division of digital artists results in some great sequences once the action moves to the track – the recreation of Lauda's fatal crash is stunning! What helps the film move along, are the impressive turns by the two leads. Chris Hemsworth is very convincing as the flaky, womanizing Brit who puts fun before everything else. Fascinating and layered deep with a silence under the glitz and glamor, James Hunt was a lonely person. Hemsworth illustrates all of it with a light sensitivity and a charismatic nature. Daniel Brühl fully understands the mechanics and precise ways of Niki Lauda. Serious to a fault, his Lauda is a study in straight talk, calculated risk taking and common sense, qualities that often put him at odds with everybody else. Bruhl gives his character soul with the occasional smile and showing of vulnerability.
When seen on the big screen, Rush is an absolute thrill-ride. When the lights went down, my heart-rate was inexorably starting to climb. After about half an hour I was having difficulty breathing. I wasn't the only one. The whole row I was in sounded like an outing of emphysema patients!