Professional sports have always featured their fair share of
playboys.
Basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain is said to have had
relations with over 20,000 women over the course of his career.
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski once came
under fire for releasing photos of himself with a porn star.
In the case of Formula One race car driver, and subject of
the new movie Rush, James Hunt, the number of women he slept with is upwards
of 5,000.
As the saying goes, “to the winner go the spoils.”
But that doesn’t mean you technically have to be a world
champion to knock ‘em dead.
That's clear in Don Jon.
In his screenwriting and directing debut, Joseph
Gordon-Levitt plays a New Jersey Lothario known to his “boys” as Don Jon.
Despite his escapades with a seemingly incalculable amount
of women whom he picks up at bars with his buddies, Jon can’t seem to shake his
addiction to pornography.
In director Ron Howard’s Rush, Hunt (Thor’s
Chris Hemsworth) can’t seem to shake his addiction to the limelight.
While similar in their hotheaded approaches to women, both
characters find themselves in completely different narratives.
Don Jon is a confident, modern romantic comedy that subverts the
standard clichés of its genre with edgy humor and honest, endearing
performances.
Rush is a sports film that more than lives up to its title
while chronicling the intense, true-life rivalry between Hunt and Austrian
driver Niki Lauda on the 1970s Formula One racing circuit.
Above all else, these two films feature outstanding leads and superb editing.
Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore and Tony
Danza lead a cast of honest, believable characters in Don Jon.
Gordon-Levitt assures his place among Hollywood’s elite
players and budding filmmakers while Johansson remains convincing in a role
tailor-made for her.
Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl both make strong, earnest turns
in Rush.
As for the editing, Lauren Zuckerman’s work on Don Jon is
akin to that of Jay Rabinowitz's on Requiem for A Dream.
Hypnotic, attractive, fast-paced editing never lets these films introduce a dull moment.
Rush’s most hypnotic sequences
come on the racetrack, with cars zooming by at 200 miles per hour.
Editor Daniel Hanley makes the
experience all the more intense with exciting race footage juxtaposed against point-of-view
shots that give the audience a sense for what it’s like behind the wheel of a
Formula One race car.
Don Jon and Rush are neither
boring, nor overbearing thanks to the work of their editors.
But like their philandering
leading men, these films are not without flaw.
Don Jon introduces a
heavy-handed tonal shift in the last 5 to 10 minutes that serves an important
purpose in terms of character development but feels out of place.
Gordon-Levitt inserts a sermon on true love that feels awkward against the funny, breezy musings of the previous hour and twenty minutes.
While I found it to be the best sports
film in years, Rush somehow lacks the “it” factor to make it an Oscar shoo-in
with characters that some critics may chastise as egotistical and unlikable.
Despite the similarities and
differences, for better or worse, Rush and Don Jon are two wonderfully
enjoyable films, albeit ones with flawed, egotistical leading men.
Don Jon: 8/10
Rush: 9.5/10
No comments:
Post a Comment