Very good true-life sporting drama

Rating: 7/10 (13 February 2014)

There was a time during my boyhood in the sixties and seventies when I took a keen interest in Formula One racing, but my enthusiasm quickly disappeared when I realised what an appallingly dangerous sport it was; during this period several of my heroes were either killed (Jim Clark, Bruce McLaren, Piers Courage, Jochen Rindt, Peter Revson) or seriously injured (Stirling Moss, Graham Hill). Despite my disillusionment, however, even I could not fail to be captured by the rivalry between James Hunt of Britain and Niki Lauda of Austria in the 1976 season.
The events of this season read more like the script of a Hollywood film or of a blockbuster novel than the record of actual historical events. Lauda, the reigning champion, dominated the early part of the season, opening up a big lead in the championship ahead of Hunt, who was regarded as his closest challenger. Hunt won the Spanish Grand Prix, but was disqualified after the race for a technical infringement of the rules. (He was eventually reinstated and his points restored). To add to Hunt's problems, his marriage fell apart when his glamorous model wife Suzy left him for the actor Richard Burton.
The drama reached a climax when Lauda was seriously injured in a crash during the German Grand Prix. It seemed that his racing career was over, but only six weeks later, defying his doctor's orders, he returned to the wheel of his car in the Italian Grand Prix. During his absence, however, Hunt had whittled down his lead in the championship, and everything now turned upon the final race of the season, the Japanese Grand Prix.
Apart from their love of their sport, the two men had two things in common. Both were from a prosperous upper-middle-class background, and both had defied their families by taking up a career in motor racing rather than in the professions. Both were married to beautiful wives. (Lauda's wife was the socialite Marlene Knaus). In personality, however, they were very different. Hunt was a brash, outgoing playboy and party animal, a lover of the good life and of beautiful women. (Suzy was far from being his only conquest, and his frequent infidelities were a major cause of the breakdown of his marriage. It is, however, perhaps ironic that she left him for Burton, a man twenty years his senior and with an even greater reputation as a hellraiser and womaniser). He started his Formula One career driving for Alexander Hesketh, an eccentric aristocrat and kindred spirit who had founded his own racing team. His aggressive, and often controversial, driving style won him the nickname of "Hunt the Shunt". Lauda was much quieter, a calm, calculating perfectionist who was an expert motor mechanic and knew as much about the technical side of the sport as about the actual driving. According to this film, the two men disliked one another intensely, although the accuracy of this has been questioned.
Ron Howard is one of the more versatile directors currently working in Hollywood, able to turn his hand to a number of different genres, including comedy ("The Paper"), the Western ("The Missing") and sword- and-sorcery fantasy ("Willow"). "Rush", like some of his earlier films such as "Apollo 13" and "A Beautiful Mind", is a biographical drama, but is quite different in content to either of those films. Howard is able to elicit good performances from his two leading actors, Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, who are able to bring out the contrasting personalities of the two rivals. Hemsworth also achieves a remarkable physical likeness to the real James Hunt.
As with some other sports, notably soccer, there have been a number of films about motor racing, including some good ones, but no really great ones. (For some reason, apart from "Chariots of Fire" about athletics, nearly all the great sports films seem to be about either boxing or baseball). "Rush" does not quite come into the "great" category, but it is nevertheless a very good sporting drama, with some fine acting and exciting action sequences. 7/10