WHY IS RUSH WORTH THE WHILE?
Niki Lauda/Daniel Brühl – Lauda is simply an interesting man. His tenacity and his character have so much potential, some of which was used in the movie. The movie should have been about Lauda, and it would have been much better. Daniel Brühl is absolutely amazing as Lauda. I cannot say if he’s a good actor – that is something that I will have to decide in the movies to come, but I loved him as Lauda.
Twenty or so minutes – There is about twenty minute of Rush that make it worth the while. These are the minutes when we get to see the drivers off track. Their private lives, their talent at setting up the car. We find out what having a good ass has to do with being a good F1 driver. We find a little bit about the sport (not nearly enough). We get a glimpse (not nearly enough) of the relationship between the drivers. We see what Lauda went through after his accident (not nearly as horrible as it has been) and his determination to get back into the cockpit.
WHAT MAKES RUSH ONLY DECENT?
The Rivalry – This movie was supposed to be about one of the most famous rivalries in Formula 1, that between Niki Lauda and James Hunt in the season of 1976. Evil-eye action and Lauda/Hunt narration were not enough for the rivalry to come to life on the screen.
James Hunt/Chris Hemsworth – I’m not only a moderate F1 fan, I am also a Hemsworth fan (no moderation there). But it was obvious throughout the movie that he is not British, and that he has been chosen to appeal to the female audiences. This movie would have been so much better if it was a story about Niki Lauda. It actually seems like they wanted to make a Lauda story, but then they decided to put in more Hunt becaue they’ve paid for Hemsworth and his naked ass to pull in audiences.
The Story – For someone who has seen the BBC documentary, who has been following F1 for five years, this movie was mostly old news. The worst thing is the fact that at times I found Rush boring. The racing was ok, but I did not see the point in showing us excerpts from pretty much every race in the season, with on screen info about which race we are watching. It had a documentary feel which I did not enjoy at all. I would have rather seen the things you cannot see in archive films – things like „behind the Formula 1“ scenes – the parties, the team games, the cruelty of the sport: hunger for money and disregard for the safety of the drivers. The movie has been romanticized – even though we see how scary and dangerous racing was, the truth of it did not resonate. I sincerely doubt that anyone said to Hunt in Japan „Don’t race, be safe“ – that is not the nature of the sport. That is Hollywood bullshit.
CONCLUSION
From a marketing point of view, Rush is a good piece of work. You have Hemsworth’s naked ass for the girls. You have fast cars, girls and the lifestyle for the boys. I doubt that the producers failed to take into account that the 2014 season will see new circuits in New Jersey and Austin – F1 is coming back to the US. And of course F1 fans will see it because it’s an F1 movie.
It’s a decent movie. From a perspective of a moderate F1 fan who knows what are KERS and DRS, who has seen Senna do miracles in Donnington and die tragically in Imola – it’s an ok movie, because it’s a movie about Formula 1.
Cheap Thrills, Guilty Pleasures 