This movie review I have struggled with for several weeks now. You see, I just can't really tell how I feel about it. During the movie, I was kind of wandering off and thinking I wasn't really liking it. Immediately afterwards I thought I didn't really like it. But several weeks later and having read a lot more about it and what the director was trying to do, I do think it is an interesting film and it was very well executed.
The Rover is the second film from director David Michod, whose debut film Animal Kingdom was one of the most critically acclaimed debut films ever and deserved everything that was said about it. The difficult thing about The Rover is that it is just as well written, acted and shot as Animal Kingdom, but it asks you to go on a journey with a set of characters that you cannot care about. It will be clear within the first few minutes that there are no stereotypical heroes in this movie.
It is set in the near future in the South Australian outback, with a simple title card stating "10 years after the collapse". What collapse is not explained although a little more exposition might have helped set the context earlier. Clearly not a nuclear/environmental apocalypse but more of an economic one, we seem to have a barely functioning society remaining based around mining activity. Stuff can still be traded (in US dollars strangely) and there are still police and army, but times are pretty desperate and dangerous.
We open with our lead character Eric (Guy Pearce) pulling into a karaoke bar seemingly at the end of the world for a drink of water. In the meantime a car full of criminals on the run, from what we don't know but one is bleeding so something has gone down, crashes their car. Opportunistically stealing Eric's car for their getaway, Henry (Scoot McNairy), Archie (Aussie David Field) and Caleb do not know what they're getting into. For Eric really, really wants his car back. So begins a dogged pursuit of Henry's gang by the single minded Eric. Eric lucks out by finding Henry's kid brother Rey (Robert Pattinson) in a very bad way and after getting him stitched up he takes Rey as a hostage to track Henry. But Rey is a very unusual character and the question is whether he will help or hinder Eric in his mission.
The performances from everyone involved are universally strong, which might have something to do with the difficulty of the location and the non-stop flies and dust. Very immersive. Guy Pearce is on almost career best form as the steely, desperate rover of the title and does a huge amount with very little dialogue. Robert Pattinson (Twilight's Edward the sparkly vampire) does a huge about face here as the almost mentally incompetent Rey, but he makes himself very hard to understand because he puts on a very strange accent to go with some facial tics for the character. It is certainly a big step up for him. The supporting roles are all strong. But, despite the efforts of all involved to inhabit these characters, it is a film about a villain chasing a group of villains and with so little dialogue and backstory, it is impossible to care about anyone getting out with what they want. You don't even know what they want or why they want it for most of the running time. But it does become a mystery you want to solve.
Based on how I felt during the movie and afterwards, I think I would rate this as a film I didn't like very much despite the respect I feel for the direction, cinematography and acting. I just need someone to cheer for in my movies to feel like I really related to it. Having read into it a little more, I can see that they were trying to evoke that sense of 'what will a human being do when pushed to the absolute edge by their circumstances and society'. And with reflection there is an exploration of that but I think they have just gone too spare with the dialogue and it is left a little too much to your interpretation. I'd give this 2.5 stars out of 5.
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