“Rush” staring Chris Hemsworth and Olivia Wilde is out in theaters, and the new movie is more than a film about racing.
With an 86 percent rating on RottenTomatoes.com, the film is certified fresh by both film critics and moviegoers alike. The film follow’s the story of Formula One's 1976 world championship between legendary rivals Niki Lauda and James Hunt.
Racing films (unless you’ve got Fast And Furious in the title) don’t usually do well in the box office, but director Ron Howard reportedly takes this film to a whole new level.
"I love sports, too, and I don't know much about Formula One, but I just kept thinking, 'If somebody made a baseball movie and if they cut to the center fielder and the center fielder was standing there with a catcher's glove on, I'd feel disrespected,'" Howard told the The Associated Press. "I didn't want those kinds of gaffes. When talking to people who really love motorsports, they'd talk about movies that weren't documentaries and they'd cite mistakes, the kind of mistakes that would really just take them out of the movie.”
Check out what the industry critics and moviegoers had to say about “Rush” below.
The racing film has “verve, nerve and heart,” according to the Washington Post:
“The filmmakers are in harness again, and again their fascination lies with two strong-willed men of diametrically opposed temperaments. Ostensibly about the rivalry between Formula One race car drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl), which reached its zenith in the explosively dramatic 1976 season, ‘Rush’ is also an old-fashioned morality tale, an iteration of the Ant and the Grasshopper with fast cars, spectacular smash-ups, fierce competition and the kind of cutthroat, grudgingly respectful one-upsmanship of which so many classic male-bonding myths are made.”
What Rotten Tomatoes users had to say about the flick:
“RUSH has some well crafted racing sequences, but the two lead characters are a pair of the biggest jerk faces! Good direction doesn't mean anything when you couldn't care less about its unlikable, egotistical characters,” said Austin Kennedy of Film Geek Central.
“You don't have to be a Formula One fan to recognize that Rush captures the urgency of the race and the intimacy of a great rivalry with incredible craftsmanship -- all you need to do is buy a ticket,” said Jason Buchanan of TV Guide's Movie Guide.
The Boston Herald says the movie will have your “pulse racing:”
“I’ve never been impressed before by big beefcake Hemsworth. But here he gives an entirely winning, jovial and Roger Moore-like performance, turning Hunt into a daredevil hedonist with a heart.
[Daniel Bruhl], the talented actor from such European films as “Good Bye Lenin!” and “Joyeux Noel,” puts himself squarely on Hollywood’s map with this equally accomplished performance in the touchier role of the little guy who doesn’t care if no one likes him.”
