Rush

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)

This is exactly the kind of film you can successfully recommend to everyone. Rush is, a little paradoxically, a terribly safe movie about a terribly unsafe (at the time) sport. The performances and the direction are great, but unfortunately I can’t share the enthusiasm. It didn’t win my heart. (12/17/2013)

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. (09/24/2013)

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)

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)