Something to watch tonight: Thursday 17 April

Rush (Howard, 2013)

With all the fuss locally about the New Zealand racing drive Liam Lawson and his travails in the early stages of a Formula 1 career – not to mention the continued popularity of the Netflix documentary series Drive to Survive – I thought I would dig up this review of a film about a wilder period in motorsport history.

Ron Howard’s Rush is a great showcase for Chris Hemsworth (Thor) to prove that he has some potential beyond the comic book beefcake. He plays British playboy racing driver James Hunt with a perfect languid English accent and a rock star twinkle just failing to hide his understandable insecurities. Daniel Brühl as his on-track nemesis Niki Lauda also does a creditable job of making an unattractive character appealing. Downsides are that the film is about 20 minutes too long and it’s the first 20 minutes that you could easily lose. Peter Morgan’s script is – unusually for him – very by-the-numbers until the inciting incident occurs after the halfway stage, also kicking Howard’s direction into gear.

Tomorrow is Good Friday and Funerals & Snakes will taking a break for Easter. The next newsletter will arrive at about 3.15 on Tuesday afternoon. The editor-in-chief and I hope you have a splendid long weekend.