Cinema: On track for dicing with death

Fast cars, rock 'n' roll, beautiful women, bad boys: At first glance, Rush looks like your routine action-adventure of a typical petrolhead movie.

Throw in an arresting rivalry between Thor star Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl, the German star of Good Bye Lenin! (2003), and you might get a few more hearts a-flutter.

But it is the flirtation with mortality - a 20 per cent chance of dying each time one went to work, as the film's real-life protagonist Niki Lauda says - which ignites Ron Howard's latest film.

Directed by the man who made The Da Vinci Code (2006) and written by Peter Morgan of Frost/Nixon (2008) fame, the 122-minute film recreates the glamour and grit of the well-known and historic rivalry between 1970s Formula One drivers James Hunt and Lauda.

"We're always curious about people who are so close to death," says Howard, who was at London's Corinthia Hotel with his cast recently to promote the movie.

"It's a kind of titillation. There's also the unusually interesting rivalry - not just standard, more extreme. It's insightful, raw, also entertaining and emotional. This is sort of Frost/Nixon meets A Beautiful Mind with the filmic challenges of Apollo 13," he adds, referring to two previous films he directed, in 2001 and 1995 respectively.

Set in the 1970s, Rush tracks the real-life careers of Hunt, an English-born playboy, and Lauda, the scion of an Austrian business empire. In history and onscreen, they could not be more different. Hunt, who won the world championships once, in 1976, was a posh public schoolboy trying to prove his rough edges, living as if each day were his last.

Lauda, a three-time world champion (1975, 1977, 1984), was calm and composed - obsessively mathematical about driving, machines, speed and risks - only to involve himself in a horrific car crash that turned his and Hunt's fortunes around in 1976.

Everyone knows the story by now: Lauda made a miraculous recovery, minus his right ear, to compete again - a mere six weeks after his accident - although Hunt eventually won the season's championship.

While Hunt died of a heart attack in 1993 at age 45 on account of his excessive lifestyle, Lauda went on to launch and run a successful airline business and restart his racing career as Jaguar's F1 manager.

With major plot twists already known to the public and an "un-American" sport for a movie theme, where is the punchline?

Morgan, 50, admits he had initial trouble convincing backers that the movie was worth investing in. Studios barely looked at the script before the screenwriter raised 80 per cent of the budget through bonds, contingencies and pre-sales, finally attracting the attention of Universal Pictures.

He says: "Five years ago, an idea like this - it just simply doesn't connect to the principal market, the American market. But nowadays, you see films making 60 to 70 per cent of their money in the international market.

"I've been thinking how modern this movie is, just the way it's put together. If it was made by a studio, it would have cost US$120 million to US$130 million. We made this for under US$50 million. Studios have so much people and so much fat in the system. Even if they wanted to, they could not make it for less."

Now, with rave reviews at test-screenings - from men and women - and talk of Oscar nominations, Morgan and Howard are feeling vindicated. The writer says of the female approval: "It's like peering over the fence into the heart of the other sex - what makes them tick, the bad boy thing. And of course there's Chris Hemsworth with a butt - a philosophical butt."

Early on in the movie, the Australian hunk is shown flashing his sculpted posterior in a scene featuring Hunt's hedonistic lifestyle.

But an equally big draw would be actor Bruhl's fascinating transformation into Lauda - physical, gestural and emotional.

Bruhl, 35, says of his encounter with Lauda, 64: "He told me he was happy with my performance. That comes as a big relief for me because he's not known to be diplomatic."

Lauda - described in the movie as a "rat", notwithstanding his affirmation of family values - allegedly sat through "20 to 30 dinners" with Morgan brainstorming the script.

In between the meals, Bruhl was also flown to Sao Paolo with the racing legend to observe F1 action behind the scenes, while told to bring only hand luggage - "just in case we didn't get along".

Morgan puts things in perspective: "Normally there's a big gap between how somebody sees himself and how you see him and how the rest of the world sees him. Niki is quite self-critical, he knows he's been an a***hole, but he knows his own value."

Lauda aside, attention has also been judiciously given to other details of authenticity. The production team went through hours of footage of races, analysing technical details ad nauseam in order to put together a realistic recreation of the races.

Howard, 59, reveals: "We got a lot more analogue in camera, in real action than we had expected. We had a lot of references from sadly a lot of disastrous crashes. There was an almost forensic analysis of these crashes. These were all the things the director had in his toolbox which we couldn't get before.

"I can't and won't make a car crash, but I can make a car go 200 miles an hour, even round a bend. And then digital can take over that."

From being a complete luddite in the world of Formula One, he says he has become a total Grand Prix convert and a circuit regular.

"Initially, I went to these events because I was doing research and then, I was ostensibly doing publicity," he says. "But mostly, it was a helluva great way to get there. I'm glad the F1 people like the movie."

Does he have any favourite team today?

"I did have interest for Lauda's team but I've got to know them all well enough I'm just really trying to sort of enjoy everybody.

"I'm neutral. I'm Switzerland."

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