“Rush”
Directed by Ron Howard
Starring Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara, Pierfrancesco Favino, David Calder
Action, Biography, Drama
123 Mins
R

With any Ron Howard movie, we expect a degree of excellence as much as we expect an old-timey feel and some dated-sounding dialogue. With Rush, Howard delivers on those expectations but manages to get out of his own way more often than he has recently, a fact for which we can all be grateful.

Telling the true story of two rivals battling over a championship title in the 1976 Formula One racing world, Howard has harnessed magic by pitch-perfectly casting Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Daniel Brühl (Inglorious Basterds) as James Hunt and Niki Lauda. While both embody a character, lifestyle, and mythos, Brühl brings Lauda to life with unrestrained commitment – a role that he is likely to walk away from with a Best Supporting Actor nomination at next year’s Oscar ceremony.

In an opening voice-over from Brühl, we immediately learn just how dangerous the sport really is. With statistics claiming that two Formula One racers perish each year, the degree to which these competitors put their life on the line is an ever-looming threat – one that Brühl accounts for in his mathematical approach to driving and Hunt devilishly uses to his advantage.

Both racers know the inherent danger well and have formulated their own tactile approach to the life-or-death nature of their craft. For Hunt, a willingness to use his competitor’s fear of death is instrumental to his success, taking advantage of people’s fears and essentially playing “chicken” with other drivers who take the danger more seriously. He’s a footloose mess, vomiting from nerves before his races and then cruising lead-footed to the winner’s circle. His cavalier playboy attitude is the stuff of tabloids and couldn’t be further from Niki Lauda’s tallied approach.

Buck-toothed Lauda is a scion who abandons family fortune to pursue the one thing that he believes himself to be great at: racing. Unlike Hunt, Lauda does this for the reward, not the thrill. There’s no dream of fame and unbridled popularity, just a drive to be the best. But Lauda goes into each and every race with the personal belief that he has a 20% chance of dying out on the track. It’s a statistic that he holds onto and proves an introductory window into his calculated soul.

While Lauda at first seems like the cold-blooded antagonist to the fun-loving Hunt, Howard does an excellent job at keeping their often-rocky competition believably civil while somehow investing us equally in their respective journeys. Instead of letting our affiliation with one man jettison our sympathy for the other, Howard offers a tactfully measured counterbalance between the two men -a ying-and-yang, symbiotic union where the strengths and weaknesses of one is reflected in their rivalry. “It is better to have a clever enemy than a foolish friend,” Lauda says of his relationship with Hunt. As such, they may be foes but they are never truly enemies.

With a first act that is slow to pick up steam, when Rush finds its pace, it sails briskly along, amping up the adrenaline, dramatic gravitas, and laughs along the way. By the time the film climaxes, we’re glued to the screen, jittering with every treacherous turn, and torn between who to root for. Making adult entertainment of this caliber has become an uncommon trend in recent Hollywood dealings so Rush is a breath of fresh air meant to be swallowed in healthy gasps while it screams across the screen.

As far as the execution of the film goes, never has a racing movie been filmed with such bold and inventive camerawork. From the crafty placement of the camera – often capturing tilted profile shots of the racing vehicles or found jammed inside the firing pistons of the engine – to the sky-high degree of tension, this is a film to root and cheer for. When you get to the bottom of it, Howard is wildly adept at blending the stuff of big blockbusters with the feel of a small drama. Rocking back and forth between quiet character moments and massive set pieces laced with invisible CGI, Rush casts a multifaceted spell that attacks from more than one angle. In the end, we’re battered but not beaten, feeling more alive than we did before we began the journey.

But surrounding the surge of effort steaming from Brühl and Hemsworth, other performers come off as little more than nice-looking wallpaper. Olivia Wilde enters – dressed in the frilly outfit of a 70s pimp, capped with a purple fedora and draped in an excessive and expensive fur – and exits without much to do. Her role as wife, then ex-wife, Suzy Hunt is as much eye-candy as it is required to honor the true-life events of Hunt. While this relationship gives a window into the dark child thriving in James, Wilde has little to work with, putting in a forgettable one-and-done performance.

Alexandra Maria Lara is given more to do but is equally tame compared to the larger-than-life figure who surrounds her. As much a keepsake as a talisman for Lauda, Lara’s character suffers from Hollywood-woman-in-the-70s syndrome. That is, she’s baselessly supportive to her husband but blase in-and-of herself. The fact that the female leads are weak cling-ons to the robust male leading characters is a tad off-putting for 21st century filmmaking but we have to take into account the truth behind the fiction – that fact that there is an authenticity to their feminine piety, a common trend latent in that regressive era.

For the three men of the film though, Rush is a rousing success that Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, and Ron Howard can all celebrate. Known more for his hammer-wielding prowess as Thor than for any considerable acting ability, Hemsworth has been given quite an opportunity here and he exploits it well. Dropping the cape and donning the persona of a deceased icon, Hemsworth showcases talent we may not have suspected before.

And even though Hemsworth is hardly a household name at this point, he is still far more known than his co-star Daniel Brühl, but that may soon change. With a performance this strong, a complete physical transformation, and the Academy-friendly “based on a true story” stamp, his chances for a nomination are strong.

As for the man behind the enterprise, Howard deserves high praise. Coming off his utterly inexcusable interlude of cinematic smudge that is The Dilemna, Howard is back on top, making a picture that is as exciting as it is emotionally stirring. With showmanship on display from all three men, Rush is a mature picture that balances our need for excitement with our search for truth.