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Reviewed by Prof Joel White
If asked “Would you like to watch a film about racing cars,” I would have quickly said “No”. And I would have missed the most brilliant and informative film ever made about a sport. A sport that is, if that is what racing a car against other cars can be called, one in which an instant and horrific death is your passenger. Watching a film which was entirely devoted to an activity to which I and, I think, most film-goers have never given a single thought and being mesmerised by it has left me wondering what other activity have I completely missed out on?

Based on the actual racing car season of the year 1976, we are in addition to all other benefits of this magnificent sporting film, spared the usual intrusion of the technical gadgets which Hollywood likes to include as it demonstrates its keeping up with the times.

James Hunt (the actor Chris Hemsworth) is presented to us as the prototype of Hollywood’s leading men: in all things but especially in their dealings with women. He smokes, he drinks, and he sleeps around.

His character, as is also the character of his rival, Nike Lauder (the actor Daniel Bruhl) has been revealed top us by award-winning biographies. In other words, they are movie characters we can really relate to.

We are taken car race track by car race track around Europe of the 1970s and, as film-goers we are subjected to what must be the most lethal of all the sports. Literally, each moment behind the wheel may well be the sportsman’s last on Earth. The filming involved won and fully merited every photographic award given at the Oscars. It must be seen to be believed.

Happily, the love affairs that the rivals engage in are handled as the second rate matters they truly are. And, as such, they add to my reasons for applauding the directorial skills involved.

The viewer tours principal cities of Europe and Asia as did the original characters of 45 years ago. And along the way is called upon to consult his own reaction to the only sport in which death can be and often has been encountered from one second to the next.