Are playboys cooler than athletes?

Rating: 8/10 (6 December 2016)

As a motorsports fan I am more than glad that this movie was made and it was done with a fairly big production value. After many movies like "Driven" and the movie about Michel Vaillant I had lost faith, I never expected a Hollywood movie or from any other place to be about motorsports and to be decent and this one is... but it fails in many places.
The biggest sin from this film is that it highlights James Hunt too much, while he was not too far from the average driver then when it comes to off-track methods. Meanwhile, it absolutely under- appreciates how much Niki Lauda did for F1 racing. Lauda was one of the first F1 drivers you could call an athlete. He did a lot of work beyond being a driver, he stayed fit and always pushed his team to build better machines, he actually changed the sport. Meanwhile, Hunt was just another driver with a liking for alcohol, drugs and women but just above average both with his vices and with his driving.
Another thing that really upsets me about the film is how the racing scenes are done. In this era of CGI-augmented action scenes I was expecting a lot more than just some stylized craziness that almost reminded me of the Speed Racer movie. I am more than sure the production could have built replica cars, use some proper drivers painted in green and use CGI to make everything look closer to real life. It saddens me to see the best racing scenes from the 60s and 70s have not be topped.
Overall a film with good intentions, some very bad decisions when it comes to style while highlighting the wrong guy. I hope Ron Howard gives the genre another go soon, maybe with some grand prix motorcycling racers (Agostini vs Hailwood, Roberts vs Sheene, Australia vs USA, etc).