Rush

Perhaps you can get into the smoothly flowing storyline and the genre-specific battle of contradictions. Yet in all honesty and humanity, I cannot do it justice, and anyone who has ever loved Formula races when it was not about strategic team laps but truly deadly entertainment will feel the same. From the first roar of the engines through the acting concert of the explosive Chris Hemsworth and the cold Daniel Brühl to a breathtaking final act filled with visual perfection and emotional richness. And if that isn't enough for a full experience, Hans Zimmer roars and the car is instantly back on the track. A track where every press of the pedal could be your last. (10/09/2013)

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! (02/11/2014)

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. (09/16/2013)

Is it merely a coincidence that Ron Howard did the most masterful work of his career not in Hollywood (which would surely not have allowed so many warts and broken bones protruding from the bodies of injured racers), but in an independent production put together by several smaller studios? Rush is not flawless. You will see the awakening of the two protagonists coming in the numerous circuits, the female characters are passive and serve only for decoration, some of the “deep” dialogue is there only to fill silent gaps, and the attempt at two equally valuable character studies is hindered by the fact that screenwriter Peter Morgan put substantially more work into humanising the monster (the “horror” shots of a mutilated face border on distastefulness) than making the playboy wiser. However, the doubling of narrators and the wringing of tension out of their essentially friendly rivalry (there is no actual bad guy) comprise the main draw of this otherwise generally good but not exceptional film. Two strong characters are a guarantee of sufficient dramatic material throughout the film's two-hour runtime and it is highly probable that you will be left wanting more at the end. Morgan offers enough information about the organisation of races in the 1970s to keep even a person unfamiliar with Formula One in the picture and, at the same time, is very careful not to anger fans of either Hunt or Lauda. In comparison with the similarly structured Crying Fist, whose climax evokes much more ambivalent feelings (because it is about life), the careful manoeuvring of Rush caused me to feel indifferent to who would win, and I thus manoeuvring generally lost interest in what was happening on screen during the final act. Rush probably owes its extraordinary popularity to the fact that everyone ultimately wins in their own way. However, another key factor is undoubtedly the precision of the film’s craftsmanship, thanks to which you perceive the racing sequences hopped up with superbly tuned sound and the fetishistic close-ups of various machine parts with all of your senses. It’s not as immersive as a PlayStation racing game, but comes pretty damned close. 80% (10/11/2013)

Formula One racing is among the sports I'm interested in, as long as I see a good story behind it. The story of Niki Lauda (and James Hunt) is like that of course, whose book “My Years with Ferrari" I read several times, and I was always fascinated by Laud's perfectionism and the cold mind, under which of course, the mind must be boiling. And that's exactly the kind of Lauda film Rush showed me. Daniel Brühl looks like his double and pointedly plays on that thin edge of unsympathetic arrogance and sympathetic genius the character needs. Chris Hemsworth is just the same as the young man Hunt. And the film tells their story with different embellishments, but that important “ice versus fire" and that hostile mood is there. In addition, the races are superbly filmed, Zimmer's music fits... And the whole part in the hospital, especially the putting-on of helmets, is so plausible, as if a person was watching a documentary (like the most impressive scenes from Senna). (08/08/2017)