Rush

2013 race car movie

Rating: 16/20

Plot: Rival Formula One drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda try to win races.

Oh, I wish this movie didn't have the flaws it does. Ron Howard should know better, but the Hollywood runs deep in Opie. He almost makes up for it by giving us a glimpse of Chris Hemsworth's ass--god-like, if you must know. The main problem with this movie is that everything is so spelled out for us. We get the personality differences of these two characters really early on, but it's continually hammered home throughout the movie until it feels redundant. At the end, there's a conversation that seems wildly improbably anyway, where the characters define exactly what their relationship is, and it was just a completely unnecessary chunk of dialogue. It's baby food for viewers who just popped this in their dvd players to watch some cars move really fast or maybe, if they're lucky, to see some gnarly crashes. Speaking of cars, there is quite a bit of Formula One car festishizing here, and I doubt I get this much of a boner (a boner with a capital O, of course) seeing cars again this year. I'm not a car guy at all, but there were all kinds of interesting shots of car parts--no, I can't identify any of them--and I really enjoyed seeing those quick shots during the races. Race car innards, smooth curves and fleshy tires. Trust me, it was pretty hot. I might know the least about race cars than anybody else living within ten miles of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and I really don't have any interest in racing at all, but the scenes where they're racing--and there were a lot of scenes where they'r racing--where so well done, all thrilling race car shit with rock music accompaniment, that I was on the edge of my seat. As a sports movie, this really works. As a dual character study, this also works. Neither of these guys is easy to like, but I liked how the story forces you to switch your allegiance throughout the story. Who you root for shifts as you realize that the one guy isn't a bad guy at all and the good guy isn't admirable but then realize that the other guy is sort of an asshole and the one asshole is sort of heroic. It's an interesting dynamic, classic frenemies, and the lead actors are really good. Thor just looks the part of a cocky race car driver, and the guy is definitely capable of standing in the background and looking pretty. And I'm wondering if my wife is going to read this and be more upset that I got a boner watching cars drive quickly or that I seem to have a thing for Chris Hemsworth. Daniel Bruhl (more offended that he doesn't get an umlaut on this blog or that he wasn't nominated for an Academy Award?) is so good as Lauda, just amazing. I don't know who I could drop out of the best actor nominations, but it's almost shocking that his performance or even the way he pronounces the word "asshole" when he calls people that wasn't good enough to get the nomination. It's really one of those performances you can't take your eyes off of, and he almost overshadows his co-star who was also really good. Incredible stuff. Howard and his big Hollywood friends nail the period details, and I like how Peter Morgan's script has so many of these scenes with double meanings, the most obvious being Lauda's groans when he's having bandages removed and simultaneously watching a race he can't participate in. The story, regardless of how embellished it might be, is the sort of thing that seems like it happens just so that somebody like Ron Howard can come along and make a movie about it. And it's tackled really well here, probably in a way that would still put somebody on the edge of their seat even if he knew all the particulars about the story. It's a terrific sports movie, and they wouldn't have treated me like I was stupid throughout a lot of it, it would have had a shot of being the best movie of 2013.