RUSH

THE PITCH

WORTH

$$$$1/2

THE VIEWING

"The closer you are to death, the more alive you feel."
Money, women,  fast cars and attitude….  The “fast-life” has it’s allure and certainly can be impressionable, especially to a young boy .. .  When that boy grows into a man… how difficult is it to put away foolish things?  Most won’t because they've made a conscience decision to live wild and bold. The aim now is to honor that proclamation and see it through, no matter where that road leads.  A tragedy in the waiting… but a thrill to watch.

         Rush was exactly what the name proclaimed… A heart pounding , emotionally driven, gear shifting Rush!  Not all at the same time either but manipulatively paced so that it was very easy to watch and hard to forget. That’s about as accurate as I can be trying to describe Ron Howard’s newly made masterpiece.  Like the work of a true master you can immediately see his imprint from the opening scene.  Perfect shots, great editing, and cinematography that screams  “look at me, I’m beautiful even with the grainy film stock” to crisp sound editing, the mise-en-scene, the camera placement, view angles, I mean every shot looked like a photograph.

     I love the cast of Daniel Bruhl to play Niki!  Everyone else casted played really well, but that casting in particular just had to be acknowledged.  Chris Hemsworth shed 14 kilos to play James Hunt.  He originally weighed 98 kilos having bulked up for the titular character in Thor, according to www.imdb.com.

      Not real familiar with the true life rivalry.  All I remember as a boy was the formula One car at Toys R’ Us.  The name Niki Lauder was stamped on the toy cars as well as the miniature racing helmets.  The fact is true stories are the hardest to replicate on screen because of the temptation to exaggerate. The truth or irony is most stories worthy to be told on this grand scale usually carry their own weight without having to modify them.  They don’t need any help being a great story.  The challenge is to not embellish the tale which is of course much more easier said than done. I felt Ron Howard and company achieved a carbon copy of the hard facts just from the little bit that I’ve read.

   

     I felt invigorated leaving the theater.  Having learned a few things about racing, I felt my Ricky Bobby ‘wanting to go faster’ coming on.  Made it home way faster than I arrived.  I asked my sister later if she found herself driving a bit faster leaving the theater than she did coming, her reply... “ I always drive fast.”

     I love it when you take away a real experience leaving a movie, that’s the real value.  The D-box seats definitely helped with the experience.  Pricey sure, but if there were EVER a film you should pony up the extra cash for to experience it...this would be the one.  It just created the perfect atmosphere.  

  

   Film connoisseur to average movie watcher, whatever level you are at,  it’s worth your while to take Rush for a spin.  Mom’s beware of the sexual content, it is rated R.  Some of those scenes could of been left on the editing room floor,  we got the jist… dude was young and wild, feeling the rush!!!

Worth watching. Letter grade: B+