When you think of racing films, you think of The Fast and the Furious and its innumerable sequels. Action-packed, thrilling and maybe entertaining, but ultimately rather shallow. So when a racing film made it into the top ten lists of various film critics last year, I sat up and paid attention.

Perhaps what helps Rush stand out so much is that it’s story is very much real. It’s based on events that occurred during the 1976 Formula One racing season, focusing particularly on the rivalry between the British James Hunt and the Austrian Niki Lauda. These two drivers completely dominated that season and commentators widely agreed that one of them would walk away with the Championship. What follows is a story so dramatic and so full of surprises that it’s very much a case of the truth being stranger than fiction.

Rush gains depth by being film as much about the events off-track as about the racing. Both Hunt and Lauda are arrogant and supremely confident in their abilities as perhaps all race-car drivers who routinely risk their lives must be. Yet apart from this, their personalities could not be more different. Where Hunt is reckless and aggressive, Lauda is calculating and precise. Where Hunt is gregarious and fond of womanising and partying, the anti-social Lauda is disliked even by his team mates and prefers to spend his free time in his garage tuning his car or at home. The extra time spent to flesh out these characters gives a human dimension to their competition and adds tension to the races.

Despite being very much not a car person, I found myself enjoying the 1970s racing scene setting, including the sight of the cute Formula 3 cars and even cameo appearances of such oddities as the six-wheeled Tyrell P34. The racing scenes are excellent and full of excitement and action, with the wet weather effects being especially impressive. One nice touch I liked is that you don’t have the tedious shots of the camera lovingly caressing every curve of the cars. This racing film is about the drivers, not the cars.

While not being the kind of movie that will likely stick in your mind for long, Rush is a fine exemplar of the sports film genre. It delivers all of the action and excitement of Formula 1 racing and thereby shows plenty of respect for the sport without needing to dumb down the material or add contrived drama. At the same time, it doesn’t shy away from portraying the terrible human costs the sport can enact and shows us that anyone who is willing to strap himself into a bomb that goes at over 200 km/h is pretty much batshit crazy.