Sunday, October 20, 2013

Movie review - Rush

The year is 1976. Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) is the reigning F1 champion but won't be this year if James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth), Lauda's rival from their Formula 3 days, has anything to do with it. I don't need to write a plot summary - it is literally all here in the trailer:

So I'll just get straight to the point. This film is awesome. AWESOME!!! I saw this with Susi, Laura, Ella, and Hero Thomas and while there was some hesitation from the girls about whether it would be worth heading out on a really disgustingly cold and rainy night to see a movie about race-car driving, about 20 minutes in, all doubts were dispelled! I think the other 3 girls are not fans of F1 racing but they all agreed that the movie is definitely worth seeing. It was tense, it was funny, it was action-packed, romantic and sexy! And it was agonising. Watching the scence of Lauda being rescued from his car and undergoing treatment at the hospital was gut-wrenching. There were audible moans and whimpers in the cinema. We had to comfort each other that despite the agonising injuries, that he survived and is in fact alive and well today! (Which is not what we can say about Hunt, RIP.)

The acting is great. Brühl is amazing as Lauda - he was so ratty as Lauda, and not just from the dental piece he was clearly wearing to get the buck teeth. The Germans and Austrian said afterwards that the way he spoke and held himself is exactly the way Lauda does, particularly the high-pitched voice. And while Hemsworth will always be referred to as Thor amongst us, he drips charm as Hunt, even though we're shown many of Hunt's non-charming aspects - the drink, drugs, arrogance, and womanizing. But you know what? It doesn't matter! Although the Lauda/Hunt rivalry was played up - it is known that they got on quite well, despite their opposing personality types, and even shared an apartment during their early racing days - it was nice to see who the two racers were the other's spur, bringing the best out of each other.

But while the characters and the story are excellently fleshed out, what really makes the movie is the cinematography. I'm going to call Oscar nominations right now. The colour palette has a slightly washed out quality that made me think (in the cinema) of photos from the seventies. The racing sequences...angles, the presentations, the way we are presented with how it was viewed of the participants and audience...they made me turn to Thomas and say, "Let's go to the autobahn and drive right now!!!" but we had about another hour of movie left to go.


But since we don't, let's go driving RIGHT NOW...and then go watch this movie!!!
8-9/10

P.S. I also found out that one of my colleagues is from the village of Nürburg!

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