Fans of Formula One history might already know all about James Hunt and Niki Lauda's 1976 season, but the expertly-woven Rush thankfully takes a suspenseful time getting there. Thor's Thor, Chris Hemsworth charismatically stars as Hunt, a reckless bad boy of the racing world who's lives just as fast as he drives. Lauda (played with precision by Daniel Brühl), is Hunt's longtime Austrian rival and diametric opposite. That Brühl is able make Lauda's straight-laced competence as engrossing as Hemsworth's routine bedding of supermodels is a testament to how deeply real these real lives are treated. Ron Howard is out in full force as director, stitching together dynamite character work with insane racing scenes. A grass-level camera captures the ludicrous speeds and deadly crashes all the more graphically. The hotshot versus the hard worker isn't new ground, cinematically. Credit then to Howard and his teams for accelerating past anything superficial, and making Rush so thrilling.
