Patience is the key to success, writes Christine Powley.
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Chris Hensworth, Daniel Bruhl, Olivia Wilde
Rating: (R13)
Four stars out of five
If they had made Rush (Rialto and Metro) immediately after the tumultuous 1976 Formula One season it would have been a made-for-television movie but because they waited 30-plus years it is a prestigious character study of two archetypes of male testosterone.
Such are the ways we tend to judge artistic merit.
James Hunt (Chris Hensworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) are forever linked together due to their epic battles on the racetrack. At first glance, they seem polar opposites. Playboy Hunt is full of easy charm and seems to slide through life never taking anything seriously, while Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) is a human computer, brutally honest and always working out the percentages.
Oil and water, they are a marketer's dream, feeding into national stereotypes and needling each other into faster and faster times. The punters like a grudge match, and Hunt and Lauda were happy to give it to them.
Actually, the real relationship between the two was far more complicated and Rush does give us glimpses of their brothers-under-the-skin dynamic but mostly it sticks to the torn-from-the-tabloids script. That approach works on one level because both men created some mighty big headlines that year, but I feel this movie failed to tell me anything new.
Best thing: Both leads do an impressive job, but Daniel Bruhl has a pinch of something extra so that by the end he is Niki Lauda to us.
Worst thing: Director Ron Howard manages not to overdo the racing sequences but by the end I had to agree with Hunt's voice-over that racing is just men driving round and round in circles and most women think it is silly.
See it with: Either a boy racer or someone who adores '70's fashion.
* Moray Pl cinema Metro is showing Rush on film stock, the last movie for which it will use reels before going digital.
