Film review – Rush

Credit: Newspress

Arguably the greatest triumph of Rush is its portrayal of Niki Lauda, whose superhuman recovery after a near fatal crash at the Nürburgring in August 1976 is laid bare in sometimes gruesome detail. It’s during those moments in hospital the audience is offered a more human side to Lauda’s previously steely character, and a dimension not often seen in cinema. This was, after all, a true story, and Lauda’s pain during treatment was real.

So convincing is Daniel Brühl’s Austrian accent and matter-of-factly tone, even Lauda himself was blown away when he witnessed the German actor at work. “Shit! That’s really me.” Was his reaction.

Directed by Ron Howard, Rush covers events leading up to, during and after the 1976 Formula 1 World Championship, which witnessed a titanic battle between Ferrari's Lauda and the oh-so-British McLaren driver James Hunt, played by Chris Hemsworth.

The film has had its fair share of hype over the last few years, boosted by tantalisingly short trailers that were as loud as they were beautiful, and which sought to tickle the fancy of a wider audience.

Rush is a feast for the eyes and ears – and beautifully recreates the 1970s. Credit: Newspress

Much of the excitement surrounding Rush was stirred by the motoring media, whose appetite for Formula 1 on the big screen only increased after the documentary-film Senna. Howard even made an appearance on Top Gear earlier this year to promote his latest creation. Not that he needed to.

Rush cleverly hooks the motor racing enthusiast with down-low camera angles, astonishingly brutal sounds and of course pukka, period Formula 1 metal, but in its humorous dialogue, the tragic love affairs of Hunt and the intriguingly awkward and seemingly friendless Lauda, there is something else for others to latch onto.

You'll never look at Niki Lauda in the same way after watching Rush. Credit: Newspress

This is the aforementioned human element and it was surprising how great an effect it had, on me at least. I may have turned into one massive goosebump during the final race at the Fuji Speedway in Japan, such was the glorious intensity of it all. But I remember the scene with Lauda attempting to pull his crash helmet over his burnt scalp in far more detail, simply because it affected me that much more.

Perhaps if Hunt was still alive today, Howard and his team could have extracted a bit more of his character and applied it to the script, which generally portrays him in somewhat two-dimensional form. Lauda, by contrast, sparkles in 3D and quite unexpectedly to me, becomes the real hero.