'Rush' overemphasizes the differences between two auto racing rivals
Formula One racing fans have deified the 1970s rivalry between Austria鈥檚 Niki Lauda and the Englishman James Hunt, and, in 鈥淩ush,鈥� director Ron Howard has upped the iconography. Even though the film is essentially an anti-buddy buddy movie, the buddies here are given a glow.
Lauda (Daniel Br眉hl) is as detached and methodical as Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) is glamorous and carousing. Racing each other in ever-spiraling death-defying competitions, they achieve a kind of yin-yang wholeness. One man doesn鈥檛 exist entirely without the other.
Howard overemphasizes the disparity between the two men. (Didn鈥檛 Lauda like to party even a little bit?) And the script by Peter Morgan (鈥淭he Queen,鈥� 鈥�Frost/Nixon鈥�) is surprisingly lame, with instantly unmemorable dialogue. The racing scenes also lack vroom. 鈥淩ush鈥� isn鈥檛 bad, exactly, but it鈥檚 like a standard-issue male action programmer that somehow crept in from an earlier era. Grade: B- (Rated R for sexual content, nudity, language, some disturbing images and brief drug use.)
