***Living Fast. Living Very Fast On Edge City –Ron Howard’s Rush

 

 

From The Pen of Frank Jackman

 

Rush, starring Daniel Bruhl, Chris Hemsworth, directed by Ron Howard, 2013   

Humankind has seemingly spent its eons of existence trying to move from Point A to Point B faster since it first came out of the slime and hit the land running. Naturally if we are hard-wired to seek to go from Point A to Point B faster, be it via goat-cart of sleek spaceship some guys, and lately some gals too,  want to be the fastest kid on the block, and get recognition for being Number One. The Ron Howard film under review, Rush, takes a modern day look at one such competitive flash in the world of top-shelf auto-racing.

Here Howard takes a look at the famous 1970s duel between Austrian Nikki Lauda and Englishman James Hunt (famous in auto-racing circles because I, frankly, was totally unaware of this competition). Both men in their respective ways were errant sons but both were desperate to be Number One in their chosen field, Formula One auto-racing. Number One at being the fastest kid on the block. Number One too in staring death in the face in a “human bomb” as one of them described it.

Now to be honest I get a little nervous, and not just cop nervous, going eighty miles an hour in a very serviceable tank (a tank compared to the high-tech machines they raced in). I also admit to having no interest at all in auto-racing at this level, although as a teenager I rode “shot-gun” a few times on “chicken runs” down at the far end of old Hullsville Beach (Massachusetts) when the king of the hill in that locale and my friend “Stew-ball Stu” Larkin took on all- comer and took all the girls back in the day, he 1960s day (that was why I was riding shot-gun, to get Stu’s “rejects” not to stare death in the face, hell no). But that was maybe at ninety miles an hour, tops. However this film grabbed me and grabbed my companion too who gets nervous when she goes over sixty.

In the end the reason that it grabbed me (us) was the pure desire of both men to win at whatever cost, win to define who they were in this wicked old world, and to stare death in the face and not flinch, not flinch at all. To go the edge and back. They both had very different styles, Lauda the technician, the guy who has every angle figured out from design to the curves and Hunt, well, Hunt a throw-back playboy who just wanted a drive, wanted to drive something fast even if it is a go-cart, drive it desperately, drive it like there was no tomorrow. I would assume most audiences would cheer for Brother Hunt (especially women with his Brad Pitts good looks) but would not be unhappy to see Nikki cross the checkered flag first either for other reasons. Nice work.