One day after its release in Lebanese cinemas (October 4), and after my friends’ persuasion – yes, my friends persuaded me, because to be honest, after seeing films like Driven, I had nothing to be excited about – I went to watch one of the most anticipated movies for petrolheads and Formula 1 fans around the world: Rush.
Much to my surprise, the movie was utterly epic. I enjoyed every scene, no matter how inaccurate or “Hollywoodized” it was (Lauda and Hunt never really hated each other, it was more of a friendly rivalry); the Formula 1 cars featured in the movie were exact replicas of the real ones, in other words, pure eye candy, and those engines… my God those engines gave me goosebumps whenever they were fired up. In terms of visuals and acoustics, the movie was a complete success.
Moving on from the cars to the characters, the contrast between Lauda and Hunt’s personalities definitely made the story more interesting; Lauda was a serious businessman who’s dedicated to his job while Hunt was the passionate playboy who’s out partying the whole time; that contrast created the “illusional” rivalry between both drivers, and with that rivalry came motivation and the hunger to win, a hunger that we as petrolheads all can relate to.
What I truly loved about the movie though is that you’ll end up respecting both characters, unlike the Senna documentary, where Prost was depicted as the evil guy, which to be fair, is completely untrue. In Rush, you will never feel any sort of resentment towards one driver and you will appreciate just how good they both were despite their differences.
Another great thing about Rush is how alive it makes you feel, if you don’t take risks, then you’re not living properly, nevertheless, risk has its limits and Lauda’s unfortunate accident at the German Grand Prix is the biggest proof, but you know what they say… what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
A great aspect of the movie is that you don’t have to be a Motorsport expert to understand what’s going on, it was created for the average viewer, and the biggest proof to that are my friends who fell in love with the action-packed film although they don’t know anything about Formula 1 or Motorsports in general.
All in all, the movie was far from being a disappointment, quite the contrary. Ron Howard’s directing combined with Hans Zimmer’s music and some great acting by Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl make Rush one of the best 2013 movies, and dare I say, the best Motorsports movie so far.