Rush (Ron Howard, 2013)

The directorial career of Ron Howard has fluctuated wildly between the saccharine and weighty, with particular lows in his Dan Brown adaptations and highs whenever the source material is a biopic. So, it comes as no great surprise that when he turns to the story of the intrinsically dramatically-charged Hunt-Lauda Formula 1 confrontation of 1976, the end result comes with a virtual guarantee of quality. Put simply, a ready-made real-life drama like this is easy to convert and it would take a poor director to mess it up completely, which he doesn't.
The two contrasting leads, Chris Hemsworth as the playboy Hunt and Daniel Brühl as his calculating rival Lauda, the latter getting his character's voice and accent down to a tee, do admittedly contribute a lot to make the package work. This is particularly difficult to do for a viewing generation used to the idea of the sport being an anodyne economic comparison between manufacturers of cars rather than slightly unhinged mavericks dicing with death, which it really was back then and which means that the tension can work even for people, such as this reviewer, who are not seduced in the slightest by millionaires in very fast cars. Basically, Rush achieves everything required of a decent sports biopic: it involves you in the event itself while filling in the human drama around it with some intelligence. I wouldn't go expecting any follow-ons either, which is a blessing. Mansell vs Prost, anyone?

7/10