Rush

Ron Howard’s perfect craftsmanship with soul and a nice message. The director proves that he knows both his craft and people. The focus is not on the races but on the characters. The two main characters are diametrically different but equally respectable madmen. Both embody the archetypes of today’s favorite film heroes – a wild guy who enjoys parties and women versus a level-headed, introverted and ambitious intellectual. What unites them is adrenaline and the desire for victory. And a strange form of friendship. They compete while inspiring each other. Thanks to Howard’s direction, you can enjoy every scene they appear in, whether separately or together. The script is said to contain factual errors and I missed the first race when Hunt recognized Lauda as a threat. But these are forgivable flaws of a beautifully rendered film about rivalry with the smell of burning rubber, which you simply cannot dislike. Daniel Brühl delivers one of the best acting performances of the year. (16/09/2013)

Ron Howard is evidently good at making biopics. Even if you don’t grow fond of Niki Lauda or James Hunt, there is still the final scene that simply launches everything a mile high. But if you’re naturally open-minded when it comes to good movies, you will definitely appreciate that the actors who portray these two characters exactly pinpoint the meaning of the term rivalry as such. Niki Lauda or James Hunt were no idiots, but they were definitely not normal, either. Whatever was between them was something that is no longer fashionable in sports today. It was mutual hatred that was supported by a great deal of respect for one another. This movie captures this perfectly. I cannot but give it a five-star rating. Niki sure must convince you of that at the end of the movie! (11/02/2014)

Rush follows Morgan’s template, where he starts with some real events, finds a “timeless" theme in it and then subordinates everything to that theme. Not a thread of truth remains in this dramatization of real events, but it doesn’t matter, because the end effect is that things could have been like that and they might easily have said it like that. Which isn’t a bad approach; and he’s a dramatist anyhow. It would be a mistake to expect faithfulness to the truth from Rush, and an even greater mistake to try to find an insight into the racing car driver’s soul, Le Mans - style. And it would have been stupid to expect a sports cliché from them. Sport is only secondary in this movie. What can you expect from it, then? A drama (first and foremost drama!) about rivalry between two adversaries where one is heads and the other tails of the same coin and where each represents a different archetype of the sport; a charismatic playboy enjoying life to the full and darling of the camera with a talent straight from God while others look after his career versus the drilled, tight, precise art of a through and through rational careerist who avoided the spotlight under all circumstances. A portrait of two men where one wouldn’t have existed without the other and... A sort of racing yin and yang. In the audience-pleasing garb (and Howard knows how to sell it, no doubt about that) of Formula 1, while not being about Formula 1 at all. (02/10/2013)

Morgan is the man. He conceives the sleek façade of roaring engines and their tamers in fire-proof overalls as an epic drama, with passionate dialogue and a sense of fair play playing a central role. We get all this in the perfect coat of Ron Howard's directorial tricks, for whom the task of creating an atmospheric visual composition is as demanding as preparing breakfast in the morning. The editing camera orgy and the riveting acting (Daniel Brühl is eyeing the Oscars) are so sovereign for two hours that it smacks a little of (traditional) "Howardian calculus," which entertains you for two hours but, like gasoline vapor, wears off by the second day at the latest. That it leaves a very strong and specific odor, I do not deny. 4 ½. (01/01/2014)

Howard is more like Niki Lauda - cool, calculating, like a professor with a flair for fine design. Because of this, Rush accelerates incredibly in the racing sequences and stiffens a bit where the film tries to name the destructiveness of racing passion. James Hunt looks like a poster boy (something like a gasoline-smelling pin-up boy) and the best parts aren't the wooden dialogues, but rather the moment when the heroes make a face or gesture after them. Otherwise, Rush is actually a fresh affair in terms of "sports lemonade". It is customary that in sports dramas, the hero has to sacrifice something and deny a piece of himself. Given that the film Lauda has what the film Hunt does not have, and vice versa, the final victory is in fact absolute. Everyone has their truth and their piece of triumph. The moment when, in the end, one cannot decide to whom to cheer for more is quite rare. I would like to point out that Rush idealizes the whole sport like knights, and according to them, it is not possible to perfectly reconstruct the case of "Lauda vs Hunt". I've been waiting all year for a blockbuster that pushes me into my seat and pumps me up with adrenaline. I had Rush as a black horse (don't hit me, I know it's basically on an indie budget). They did their job perfectly. [80%] P.S. Thumbs up for Brühl... Lauda has never been this cool. Cold and sharp as a razor. (24/09/2013)