15 Major Historical Inaccuracies That Undermine Famous Movies
11. Rush's 'Rivals' Were Actually Good Friends
Rush is a very fine drama film that was so good it's still on the IMDb Top 250 to this day. It depicts the intense rivalry between two racing drivers: the cocky Brit James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and calculated, precise Austrian Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl). For the most part the film is reasonably accurate but there's one huge historical inaccuracy. The rivals, depicted as bitter enemies in the film, were actually good friends and had previously shared a flat in London.
This, in fairness, does add an interesting layer of drama to the story and the way in which they eventually become friends out of mutual respect is well-done in the film, but this is an undeniably distracting historical inaccuracy. This intense rivalry is the narrative spine of the film, so the fact that it's entirely fictional (especially when the film is otherwise fairly accurate) makes the film feel considerably less trust-worthy and believable.
The thing is, depicting Hunt and Lauda as rivals wasn't essential to the film. Depicting them as the respectful friends that they were would've worked just as well and could've been even better, since the mixture of friendship and rivalry would've brought some interesting shade to the film.
It's still an excellent movie, but this one inaccurate detail is really rather jarring.