Author: Ankur

I love biodramas, especially when they carry the pedigree of the team that was put together for Rush. Directed by Ron Howard – with previous hits such as Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind, and Cinderella Man – and screenplay by Peter Morgan – with the experience of screenwriting for Frost / Nixon, The Other Boleyn Girl, The Last King of Scotland, and The Queen under his belt – Rush tells the story of the rivalry between Formula 1 drivers James Hunt and Niki Lauda. There possibly couldn’t be a better team than these two for attempting to tell the story.

I am not particularly fond of or follow Formula 1, despite having attended two F1 races in person. Yet even for someone who absolutely has no idea of the backstory or an interest in motorsport racing, the film has enough going in the drama aspect to keep the most disinterested viewer engaged. This is partly helped by the colourful character that Hunt was, a sort-of playboy who stumbled onto race driving when not sleeping around with anything with a pair of legs and boobs. I can’t think of anyone other than Chris Hemsworth to play the part.

The counterbalance to Hunt’s character in that of Niki Lauda, played by Daniel Bruhl, couldn’t be starker in contrast. A fastidiously disciplined driver who didn’t believe in showing off like Hunt did, nor enjoying the popular support among his peers for his personality, it’s apparent that Lauda was a character at once to be admired and respected without being likeable. Lauda suffered one of the most horrific car crashes in Formula 1 history which left him in a searing inferno, with much of his face burned off. You can’t help but admire his resolve as he fights for his life in the hospital and makes it back onto the track in time to defend his world championship position. It’s fascinating how Hunt and Lauda start with despising each other, and then eventually learning to respect each other in how they both drove the other to accomplish what neither thought they could motivate themselves to do.

As always for a Ron Howard film, the cinematography is spectacular. He works magic in being able to take filming cars going around on a racetrack – never an easy task during live races due to production constraints – and breathes life into it. Fast cars, gorgeous women, larger-than-life characters – Rush has it all.

Rating: 4 / 5

Hushed whispers of “Is Chloe Moretz of-age yet? No? Shoot.” filled the cinema as viewers ushered themselves in for the screening of Kick-Ass 2. I wasn’t surprised. The target audience for Kick-Ass 2 is exactly the kind of person who engages in a masturbathon while sobbing about the lack of being in a relationship that would drive him to wearing a superhero costume and pretending to be “kick-ass” to boost his self-esteem.

I foolishly hoped that this sequel would live up to the pedigree of its predecessor, Kick-Ass. While the first film was written and directed by Matthew Vaughn – well-known for his work on classics such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, and Layer Cake – was a smartly-written, acerbic comedy-thriller, the sequel is written and directed by Jeff Wadlow – “best-known” for his terrible, terrible screenplays for Cry Wolf and Prey; two excruciatingly terrible “thrillers”. Kick-Ass made Nicholas Cage look good: that’s how good it was. Let that sink in for a minute.

Needless to say, Kick-Ass 2 was hopelessly derivative. Much of the plot made no sense and the pacing was all over the place. There isn’t any overarching theme holding the film together, and when it does try pontificating serious issues it falls flat on its face because of forced the dialogue seems. Perhaps the only redeemable feature is the aplomb with which Christopher Mintz-Plasse dives into his character of Chris “the Motherfucker” D’Amico – a caricature of what a villain should be. Who said overacting doesn’t make a film better, at times?

Another area where Kick-Ass excelled and Kick-Ass 2 fails is the soundtrack; instead of the carefully-chosen songs that complemented the action in the first film, the score in the second is bland muzak that will probably be sold for pennies as elevator music by the end of the year.

There’s a scene in the film where the protagonist Dave is shown wearing a t-shirt that reads “I Hate Reboots”. If there was ever a chance for the filmmakers to make a clever joke, it would be this scene – just make the t-shirt read “I Hate Sequels”. Yet this is precisely the kind of risk taking that would not happen in the circlejerk nature of Hollywood sequels which do nothing more than slap lipstick on a pig and then sink millions of dollars into marketing in the hope that enough moviegoers in foreign territories will buy tickets to recoup production costs. Pathetic.