Rush (2013)

I don't really know what to start with ... I don't know if "Rush" can be named a movie about Formula 1. And I don't think it's addressed only to the Formula 1 fans. I guess is more a movie about a real and unique episode, which from a personal point of view exceeds the boundaries of the sport itself. Honestly, I don't know how this movie wasn't made by now since the story is quite old and spectacular enough to fit a screen version. Anyway, let me detail a bit the subject ...

The focus of the movie is on the 1976 season, but first we have some background to see how it got there. Background which explains how the rivalry grew between two pilots: James Hunt and Niki Lauda, some saying it was the fiercest in the Formula 1 history (I would put it after the Prost - Senna duel as far as I know, although I'm not old enough to have witnessed any of them). Well, to get back to '76 ("spoilers" starting), that's when the rivalry got to the climax, both pilots rolling on close cars as performance, Lauda on Ferrari and Hunt on McLaren. Lauda did catch though a consistent lead on points in the first season half. Up to the race in Germany, where we probably have one of the few, if not only, examples of tragic F1 accidents with a happy ending .. well, sort of .. Lauda's car got burning with him inside, being saved eventually with very bad wounds. The happy ending .. the guy survived. Even more, as unlikely it may sound, he returned to driving in less than two months with bandages on his head and his lungs wrecked, decided to defend the title which seemed stolen by Hunt. And the story continues .. with what happened in the last race, but let me keep a bit of mystery for who doesn't now the full history ;)

I started watching Formula 1 long ago, when I was a kid, in 1994, probably the worst season in the history when you could've got into this. It's the year when Senna died (and I guess is also the last fatal accident happened during a race), and from what I've seen had one of the ugliest season finale, with Schumacher winning at one point difference after a hit with Hill's car. Yup, I still remember ( not very clear though :) ) because this was the reason why I never liked the German driver, and I ended up supporting either McLaren or Williams or more precisely I was anti-Ferrari :). To cut it short, from 2006 if I'm correct, I gave up on watching the races. I don't know exactly why, I never thought about it .. Anyway, seems I'm left with some nostalgia, since I just wrote this paragraph that doesn't have anything to do with the movie ...

Where I wanted to get is that I don't know if I can express any objective opinion about the movie's message, which keeps itself neutral enough despite some typical Hollywood nuances here and there. But I also can't limit myself only on a fan view over this sport, because I'm not in that position anymore. I could discuss the production's technical parts, where I've probably seen the best editing, both video & sound, of the year (which effectively gives you chills from time to time even if you know what's coming). I'm really not in the mood though to get too long analyzing this now. Maybe I'm digging too deep, but as I started, I guess the conclusion is beyond a simple report of what happened, once, at the end of '76 on a rainy day in Japan. Where, as the main track of the movie score says it was a situation of "lost but won", but which I guess it applied to two pilots, and not only one. It's a life moral, which says that the line "no risk, no win" is a non-sense, either because knowing when not to risk might be a winning even if you lose, either because risking and winning might be a loss.

Rating: 4 out of 5