RUSH

Close on the heels of 'Senna' one of the hot docs of 2012 that told of the bitter rivalry between the charismatic Brazilian 3-time World Champion Formula One Driver Ayrton Senna and  the French 4-time Champion Alain Proust comes this stunning narrative of a very similar battle royal two decades earlier.  In this instance, in one corner tall blond womanising ex-Public schoolboy too-handsome-for-his-own good British James Hunt and in the other the dour intensely overly-serious Austrian Nikki Lauda without a hint of sense of humor or any joie de vivre.

In this true real-life story both men had grown up in wealthy upper-class families whom both resisted when their sons announced their ambitions to become professional racing drivers. This stopped neither of them, and Hunt sweet-talked the English Aristocrat Lord Hesketh to be part of the Racing Team that the Peer was funding whereas the disinherited Lauda got himself a Bank Loan and bought his way into a Formula One team.

The nerdy Lauda slowly and diligently impressed his new team-mates with his fixation with the most minute details to improve both the car and his performance, whereas Hunt went out of his way to be a showy risk-taker on the track which made him the crowd's favorite driver. They were the very best drivers in Formula One that year and Lauda started winning races by his careful planning, whereas Hunt won his by taking dangerous manoeuvres and risky chances. 

Even off the track they led totally different lives. Hunt the playboy married Suzy Parker the most famous model of the day, whilst Lauda proposes to Marlene his long suffering girlfriend reluctantly with  'if I'm going to do it with someone, it might as well be you'.  

In 1975 Lauda now driving for the Ferrari team won his first World Championship beating Hunt who was still driving his much inferior Hesketh car.  In the next year Hunt signed on to the Maclaren team which gave him a car to match Lauda's and the fierce rivalry between the two drivers became almost deadly. In a plot that seems like it could only have been written for a movie, Lauda has a near-fatal crash and is almost burned to death, but less than two months later is back in his car for the final race of the Season that will determine the Championship between the two men.

Oscar winning director Ron Howard ('A Beautiful Mind') working from a script by Oscar nominated writer Peter Morgan ('The Queen' , 'Frost & Nixon') gives us the most thrilling motor racing movie that I have ever seen. The fact that it is melded with this very intense human drama, makes it so much more than just another fast action piece. These two highly charged men couldn't have been anymore different from each other.  Lauda may have been the one with the relentless determination to beat his rival at all costs, but Hunt also desperately wanted to be the winner that he would dangerously push both their boundaries to achieve it.

The cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle, another Oscar Winner ('Slumdog Millionaire') is nothing less than stunning, particularly of the creative way he filmed all the racing, although I could have done with a little less of the equally harrowing scenes of the up-close bloody gore when Lauda's face is being reformed under the surgeons knife.


Australian devilishly handsome Chris Hemsworth so
perfectly captured the James Hunt  I recall from the time, but Hunt never ever had that pumped up torso that Hemsworth is happy to reveal completely in one of his many bedtime romps. Both he, and the German/Spanish actor Daniel Bruhl as Lauda, gave what could possibly be career defining performances that should earn them some best acting nominations. 

I guess that most sporting championships succeed because of the passionate antagonistic clash of the two main players, but whether they are quite as lopsided or partisan as this one is questionable. At the same time that Hunt was portrayed as such a lovable irresistible bad-boy that every one wanted to succeed then the intensely boring Lauda was painted with his heavy Germanic accent as the one that no-one wanted to win.  If director Howard had been English, I would have accused him of letting our customary British teutonophobia creep through.

One of the few Hollywood blockbusters I have been tempted to see this year, and I am so pleased that I did as it is excellent.

P.S. If I had one 'but' to add, it would be for the ridiculous hair pieces all the men wore.  I know this was the 1970's but we cannot all have looked that bad.  Could we?

★★★★★★★★★

LINCOLN

Stephen Spielberg's epic take on Abraham Lincoln's fight to abolish slavery can be described simply as a cinematic masterpiece. Penned by Tony Kushner (from Doris Kearns Goodwin's best selling novel) with a magnificent intrepid cast, it is unquestionably one of THE best movies of the year.  The Academy Award for Best Actor is Daniel Day-Lewis's for the taking with his steely breath-taking portrayal of the President.  

Although even as a newly 'baptized' American I had been aware of Lincoln's magnificent achievement that he managed before his untimely assassination, I was totally unaware of the fascinating skull-duggery behind the scenes to ensure that this, the 13th Amendment to our Constitution, had enough votes  to be passed by the House pf Representatives.  Congressmen were badgered, threatened, bought off or justly bribed outright in this fiercely partisan House. It all seemed a little like deja vu from where I was sitting.

The movie opens with the bloody Civil War still raging on and Lincoln has just delivered his Gettysburg address and been soundly re-elected to serve his second Presidential term.  His Republican Party also did very well at the Polls and now in this final lame duck session before the Inaugeration, there are some defeated Democratic Congressmen eking out their last few weeks in power.  Lincoln seizes on them as having the potential to break his electoral gridlock if he can somehow 'persude' them to vote against their Party lines.

Whilst he must manipulate this discreetly via his heavy handed 'lobbyists behind his scenes, there is also great pressure of him to both negoiate peace with the Rebel Forces by one faction, whilst the opposition thinks the war should be fought to the bitter end.  And then at home in The White House the President must also deal with his highly-strung wife who is still grieving for the loss of one son, and is determined that another one will not be allowed to enlist in the Army.

Spielberg builds up the tension stealthily and slowly until the Vote itself is finally taken in the House and although we know the result, by this point it is nevertheless  somehow just as compellingly anxious as waiting to see the current President beat all the odds and win.

To me this is Hollywood film-making at its very finest. Spielberg is unsurpassable at these epic American dramas, and Irishman Mr Day Lewis has carved such a niche with his awe-inspiring Award-winning performances of these historical figures. I have read all those reports of his extreme 'method acting' when he lives the character off screen at all .... well if they are true, they have paid off big time. He is simply breath-taking to watch every single minute he is on view. It's not often that one has the luxury of watching a whole movie with a Miami audience in total silence (!) but this one, thanks to Mr Day Lewis,   awe-inspiringly numbed them for the entire 150 minutes.

Credit too for such an exalted supporting cast headed by a wonderfully funny Tommy Lee Jones as the irascible Thadeus Stevens a Republican Leader and committed abolitionist , Joseph Gordon Levatt as Lincoln's son Robert, David Strathairn as The Secretary of State. etc etc.  Sally Field did her sterling best as the unhinged Mary Lincoln but somehow seemed mis-matched with Mr Day Lewis.

It's a truly magnificent period in this country's history and this movie acknowledges that and treats it with all the respect that it so rightly deserves.  TOTALLY UNMISSABLE

P.S. On a point of order, can someone tell this uninformed ex Brit when did the Republicans become the 'baddies' and swap roles with the Democrats?

★★★★★★★★★★