Formulaic: Rush

Even a bad sports movie is usually pretty good. There are several basic formulas that sports movies can follow, and if the filmmaker does so with honesty and fidelity he or she will produce a movie that is reasonably entertaining, satisfying, heartwarming, perhaps even informative. Ron Howard, the master of the high-quality middle-brow Hollywood film, manages all of this in Rush, which is formulaic for sure - arch-rivals competing head to head, in this case rival formula one race-car drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda, are opposites in temperament (Hunt a cool and loose-living playboy who's actually much more nerve-wracked than he lets on; Lauda an automaton disliked not only by other drivers but even by his own teammates) but, over time, develop a respect and even fondness for each other - despite their differences, they share one trait - the desire and ability to be the best in their field. OK, we've seen all this before - although for me at least Formula One Grand Prix racing was a totally new milieu; I had never heard of either driver, but quickly conned that this movie is based, at least in its broadest strokes, on historical fact. Howard does very effectively convey the dangers and difficulty of race-car driving - the race scenes are suitably nail-biting. Howard also effectively captures the look of the time period - the early 1970s - possibly using some archival footage for the crowd scenes? The two racers are pretty much just types, without much depth to either, but it's a sports movie - not Ingmar Bergman. Essentially, it's a movie about these two guys and about cars - there are no other people of any substance or importance to the story line; their wives/girlfriends are there mainly for a few cutaway shots during the race scenes, that's all. Rush breaks no new ground, nor does it try to do so - it accomplishes its own modest goals, which is success of a sort.