I'd completely forgotten Ron Howard made Frost/Nixon. In fact after the barrage of mediocrity that was The Dilemma, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons I think I must have retroactively convinced myself that someone else made it and his other career high: Apollo 13. It's like he's two different directors, both unashamedly populist, but one is a journeyman, only interested in getting the job done, whilst the other believes in the material, heart and soul, and can make films as visceral and thrilling as the best of them. It's just a shame the latter version turns out so rarely. Fortunately that's the director we get in Rush, the true story of Niki Lauda and James Hunt's rivalry, two of Formula One's greatest ever drivers.
If you're knowledge of Formula One matches my own - I know nothing, times nothing, carry the nothing - fear not: Peter Morgan's script deftly guides us through the strange world of going round and round in circles in a fast car. Morgan follows the usual movie arc of 'rise and fall, and rise again', but does such a good job of tapping into what makes the central duo tic that you forget you're watching a sports movie, with all the sports movie cliches that go with it. The bloody minded focus with which Lauda (played by Daniel Brühl) and Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) approached racing, in a sport where when someone gets in a car there's a 20% chance they won't be getting out again - at least not in one piece - is astonishing, commendable, and also a tiny bit insane. Hunt is passionate, hot-headed and prepared to take any opening, even at the risk of death. Lauda is smart, calculating and indefatigable. The dichotomy between the two sounds like a Hollwoodisation, conjured for convenience, but by all accounts it's true. What's great about the script, and Brühl and Hemsworth's performances, is that we're not made to see anyone as the villain. There's no obvious character to cheer for. Lauda and Hunt are two flawed men who need to leave a mark, and driving is the only way they know how.
Plenty of other directors have tried to get across why watching cars going fast, in circles, can get the adrenaline going. One of Howard's most effective tools here is the sound design: the pulsating engines have a bass rumble so deep I could feel it in my ribcage. The sound was so hypnotic and energising that it wasn't till the end credits that I realised Hans 'Never-Known-For-Being-Restrained' Zimmer had done the score. Making Formula One either the perfect avenue for his thrumming (and of late rather blaring) soundtracks, or the worst. I'll let you know after I've seen it again.
It's only during the last act that the film loses its way a little. The driving sequences are just as thrilling, but Morgan suddenly forgets how to write exposition. The commentators, who up until that point had been well used to gives us an idea of who/what/why/where, begin to point out things that are clear to anyone with the power of sight. Which is annoying, but bearable. What's less forgivable is how they start telling us what the characters are thinking, when Howard has already made it absolutely clear what Hunt and Lauda are going through. But it's only a slight hiccup in what is easily the best film Ron Howard has ever made.
Go see it, and be amazed at how you'll care about one car going faster than another car.
Overall: 8.5/10
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