Movie Ratings That Actually Work    Become a Member

"One of the 50 Coolest Websites...they simply tell it like it is" - TIME

Rush | 2013 | R | - 8.7.6

Based on a true story about the relentless rivalry in the 1970s between two Formula One racecar stars, Britain's James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Austria's Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl). The drivers risk everything in their open cockpits to win the 1976 World Championship. Also with Olivia Wilde, Natalie Dormer, Alexandra Maria Lara and Tom Wlaschiha. Some scenes feature dialogue in German and Italian with English subtitles. Directed by Ron Howard. [2:03]

SEX/NUDITY 8 - A man at a medical clinic has sex with a nurse: we see his bare chest as we see the woman from the back when he sits her on an exam table and she leans back toward the camera (the scene becomes blurry and sex is implied); the camera then cuts to a short shower scene in which we see the man's bare back as he leans into a woman who has her back against the wall (we see her bare breasts) and he thrusts, her eyes roll, and the scene ends.
 On an airplane a man sees a newspaper headline in which he is quoted as saying: "Marriage didn't suit my lifestyle" and we then see him in the airplane bathroom having sex with a stewardess while staring at himself in the mirror; she is shown leaning back on the sink while he is shown thrusting and we see one of her bare ankles, part of her bare abdomen and hear her grunt (he appears to be fully clothed). A man is seen in a couple of scenes under a sheet in bed, covered to the waist, but is shirtless and we see his bare chest; beside him in these scenes is an unknown woman and we see her hair, one arm and one lower leg sticking out from the covers (sex is implied).
 A man and a woman marry in a civil ceremony and honeymoon at a hotel: in the pool at night they both wear only Speedo bottoms and we see the woman's breasts as they kiss briefly once. A nude man and a nude woman walk away from the camera in a bedroom scene (bare buttocks are seen). After winning a world racing championship, a driver is shown in a montage in which we see three or four changing scenes at once on a split screen while he is with different women. We catch glimpses of women's bare backs, a bare thigh and leg, a bare buttock and thigh, and a pair of bare breasts and nipples. At a race in Brazil, we see close-ups of women's bodies dancing in Carnivale costumes: we see a close-up of a jeweled bra and cleavage; an abdomen and very short jeweled shirt; a jeweled bra, abdomen and cleavage; the camera pans back and we see three women dancing between cars wearing jeweled bikinis and feathers (we see bare backs, cleavage, abdomens, partial buttocks and thighs). Two female models wear very low-cut bodices on long dresses that reveal cleavage; one of them wears a jersey floor-length halter dress that bares her back while revealing a little cleavage. A woman wears a long nightgown that reveals cleavage; her husband is shown wearing a long bathrobe that reveals some hair in the middle of his chest. Women wear miniskirts reaching to mid-thigh in several racing event scenes. Some women wear deeply cut blouses that reveal cleavage. Women wear blouses that reveal bare abdomens and lower backs as well as cleavage. Several women wear short raincoats that reveal most of their thighs. Several scenes show women spectators wearing short shorts. A few male spectators are seen shirtless.
 A man and a woman kiss briefly at home and for much longer while dancing in a club. A man kisses another man on the mouth for accomplishing a good business deal and the second man looks stunned.
 A man stares at the buttocks of a receptionist as she turns away from her desk. A racer's manager states that condom companies do not make good sponsors and he shows him a mock-up logo patch (on a round white background we see a red arm making a muscle, and the letters SEX over the top of the bicep).
 A racer marries a famous model soon after they meet and soon after newspaper headlines report that the wife is having an affair with a famous actor and when the racer asks her to come back to him she refuses and says that he is not serious about relationships. A woman had been living, unmarried, with an older man, but we see her carrying a suitcase-duffel away from the house and she tells another man that she is leaving for good.
 A man remarks to a woman that men love cars more than they love women. A man remarks to a male friend that a woman and another man had sex for at least 24 hours and the woman would probably never be satisfied with another lover. A man tells newspaper reporters, "My wife has found a new backer... I mean lover.'"

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - The film centers on a series of fast-paced Formula One (F1) races in open vehicles that are dangerous to drive and we hear in a voiceover that two F1 drivers die every year.
 During a series of races we see calamity on the racetracks: Cars swerve to avoid hitting one another and two cars spin off the tracks into grass and drive back onto the tracks; three races feature engine blow-outs and smoking engines by the side of the tracks; in one scene, the large tires of two cars touch and make both cars spin toward the track walls, but the drivers recover control; we see an empty crashed car stuck half-way through a track railing (the car is twisted, scorched, and smoking, and we see some shattered plastic and fiberglass on the ground) and the camera cuts to a black and white TV screen showing the car crashing in lots of smoke (we do not see the driver); another scene shows a car in a long shot as it spins out and leaves the track, but not before a large wheel and tire fly off and across the infield to hit a truck hood with a thud; a car hits a side wall on the track, rises into the air, spins several times around its long axis, and crashes in clouds of smoke and in a cut to close-up we see the shouting driver on a gurney with his lower right ripped open and bleeding (we see nearly all of the tibia and fibula exposed and his face is also bloody).
 At the German Grand Prix in 1976 track conditions and weather are very wet, but the drivers and crews vote to race anyway and an announcer tells the public that the track is now The Graveyard because of weather conditions: the race begins and cars skid and hydroplane, one car swerves off the track, hits an embankment and rolls back into the path of another car that hits it; a second car hits it as well and the first car goes up in flames and we hear the driver shouting for someone to get him out (he is pulled from the car, but has suffered severe burns to the head, arms, hands and leg along with inhaling hot toxic gases that burned his lungs); in the hospital we see the wounded driver's head is swelled to double normal size and it is raw, red and peeling; the injured man also has an oxygen clip in his nose and IVs in his arm and we see doctors changing gauze bandages, pulling away some skin and causing bleeding on the forehead; in a few days, the driver begins pushing his race helmet over his head to reduce swelling further and he groans in pain; a doctors pushes a 2-foot-long metal tube down the man's throat to vacuum out dead tissue from his lungs as he coughs (black liquid runs through a plastic hose at the other end of the tube and into a jar); the doctor removes the tube slowly and the patient tells him to put it back and vacuum more and the scene ends as he opens his mouth.
 A racer returns to the track 6 weeks after a severe accident and multiple burns; we him wearing a pressure bandage on the side of his skull, his forehead is marbled with red lines and scars, his cheek is red and scarred, his ear misshapen and partially missing, and the heel of his hand is red; a reporter at pre-race interview insults him by asking if his marriage can hold together with his appearance being so bad and the driver yells an F-word at the reporter and storms off; a rival driver takes the reporter aside, pushes him into a restroom, punches him to the floor and beats him until his head and face are bloody, and then the driver places a rectangular object into the reporter's mouth and slams it to break the teeth and jaw, commenting that the reporter's appearance is not good.
 At the Japanese Grand Prix in 1976 the weather is dangerous with high winds, torrential rains and heavy fog; one driver before the race says that the track is lethal and another driver drops out of the race after only two laps, unable to see in the rain and fog; while driving, a racer sees a flashback of a priest giving him last rites in the hospital after a crash as cars swerve back and forth across the track and hydroplane in pools of water; one driver has a blow-out, goes to the pits, and we see blood on the palm of his hand where the gear shifter punched through as he shouts for the pit crew to hurry as the weather worsens; he slams his helmet visor down and speeds back onto the track, cutting in front of other drivers too closely, unable to see clearly in the rain and fog, but hitting no one and finishing the race.
 A man with a bloody nose and blood on the front of his jumpsuit walks into a clinic for a checkup; in an exam room, we see that his lower ribcage is bloody and cut, covered with gauze and a nurse removes the gauze, cleans and re-bandages him as he groans in pain.
 A wealthy father and son argue about the son's career as a racecar driver, the father maintaining that it is not a fit occupation; the son tells his father angrily that he will find his own backers and storms out of the room. A racecar driver tells another driver that he feels most alive when he is near death on a dangerous race track; he says also that he was prepared to die to win the Japanese Grand Prix that was run in heavy fog, wind and rain in 1976. We hear that a racecar driver died at the age of 45 because he had said that he needed to have fun after the hard work of each race, drinking, doing drugs, and having sex with different women and attending parties.
 In a passenger car, a racecar driver transports two male fans and a female friend who asks the driver to drive fast and he floors the accelerator, causing the woman to gasp and the fans to cheer (no one is harmed).
 In four scenes before different races begin, a driver vomits onto the ground beside his team's pit (we hear him gag, cough and wretch as we see yellowish vomit hit the ground and the fourth time, a much larger amount of vomitus is produced).

LANGUAGE 6 - About 17 F-words and its derivatives, 3 obscene hand gestures, 2 sexual references, 8 scatological terms, 13 anatomical terms, 44 mild obscenities, name-calling (idiot, amateurs, fat, inbred, crazy, vapid, stupid, jerk, little boy, rats, nuts), stereotypical references to men, women, relationships, marriage, racecar drivers, models, reporters, groupies, the British, Germans, Italians, 7 religious exclamations (e.g. My God, Jesus, God help anyone who wants more).

SUBSTANCE USE - We see a hand straighten a line of cocaine using a razor blade. A man opens a bottle of champagne and sprays onlookers after car races, men and women drink from bottles of beer and glasses of champagne and wines at parties and cookouts and they also smoke cigarettes in these scenes, men and women are drinking wine as well as beer and whiskey in three restaurant-club scenes and some of the men and women in each scene also smoke, a man pours whiskey into a glass and drinks it in an all-male meeting, a man sits at a desk and drinks whiskey while smoking a cigar, a racecar driver begins to drink frequently in many outdoor and indoor scenes showing him drinking whiskey from a glass, a half dozen morning hotel bedroom scenes show a long table on top of which are two or three half-filled glasses of wine and an empty wine bottle, a man is shown drinking beer from bottles and smoking cigarettes, and a driver tells reporters that he intends to get drunk after winning a race. A man smokes cigarettes in a dozen indoor and outdoor scenes, a man has both a lighted cigar and a lighted cigarette in an ashtray at a table and smokes the cigarette, a racecar announcers' booth contains three ashtrays full of lighted cigarettes and we see smoke rising (no one is shown smoking), two auto mechanics smoke cigarettes together in their garage in three scenes, several men and women smoke cigarettes in two restaurants and outside at a track during a racing event, an older man smokes a cigar in his study at home, and a driver's manager tells him that cigarette companies are not appropriate sponsors (but Marlboro becomes their sponsor).

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Dangerous occupations, racecar driving, competition, determination, hedonism, fame, money, respect, relationships, excess, survival.

MESSAGE - Determination can help you win, but winning a prize is not worth your life.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


how to
support us

PLEASE DONATE

We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.

NO MORE ADS!

Become a member of our premium site for just $1/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we don't always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.

how to
support us

PLEASE DONATE

We are a totally independent website with no connections to political, religious or other groups & we neither solicit nor choose advertisers. You can help us keep our independence with a donation.

NO MORE ADS!

Become a member of our premium site for just $2/month & access advance reviews, without any ads, not a single one, ever. And you will be helping support our website & our efforts.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

We welcome suggestions & criticisms -- and we will accept compliments too. While we read all emails & try to reply we do not always manage to do so; be assured that we will not share your e-mail address.

Subscribe to our newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter

Know when new reviews are published
We will never sell or share your email address with anybody and you can unsubscribe at any time

You're all set! Please check your email for confirmation.

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This