Review of The Rover (2014) by Dawdlingpoet — 27 Nov 2021

This is a crime and drama film, with themes covered including threats, sibling relationships, confessions and theft. It is quite a bleak film, with a desolate setting. It features chilly, unsettling, menacing sounding even music in the form of what sounded like almost slow, painful scrape-y, trudging noises in the background, which sounded quite haunting. Some of the dialogue I found to be quite unsettling too. There are a variety of characters, which may not be what you might expect, although I won't say anymore so as not to provide any spoilers but suffice to say that some of the people he comes across aren't what you may expect to find in such a setting. At times I felt it had the look of an old fashioned western film - there are various gun shootouts, for one thing.

I found the start of the film a bit confusing, as it doesn't really try to explain whats going on and so it seems like your already perhaps mid way through a film, rather than at the start. Its only as the plot slowly develops that we get a glimpse in to whats happened before and why the main character, Eric, is doing what he's doing, why he is in the position he is.

I noticed there were some quite impressive landscape camera shots, i.e. good cinematography present at times. This reinforces the bleak environment at times but also shows some of the beauty of nature in such a desolate place at other times as well.

Cast wise, Guy Pearce plays the main character Eric. He comes across as quite cold blooded/cold hearted, quite a quick witted person, very determined and steely - someone to be nervous of, thats for sure. He plays the role quite deadpan and so his portrayal does seem eerily realistic. Meanwhile, Robert Pattinson plays the unlikely 'friend' Rey, who is less self assured and less witty but does seem genuinely quite uncomfortable and nervous, as anyone would in his situation. I thought it was interesting to see Pattinson take on what seems like a different type of role to his previous films. Rey is more of a sort of naive country bumpkin sibling type and I thought he was played well by Pattinson in this film and I did find myself feeling quite sorry for him, as he presumably didn't realise from the outset what he was getting in to. His southern accent sounded relatively genuine to me but then I've not been to the area, so it might be bad for all I'd know, I suppose! im perhaps not the best person to judge that(?). Other characters include Scoot McNairy as Henry and David Field as Archie.

Content wise, the film contains very strong language, some sex references and violence (mainly gunfire related) including bloody violence with bloody injuries shown on screen. The film as a whole is quite dark in tone and the violent scenes can be quite sudden, so they may be more distressing or frightening to some people - suffice to say its not for the very feignt hearted. The film has been given a 15 rating in the UK due to said content.

Yes, I'd recommend this film as I felt it was very atmospheric, spooky and mysterious and it features good performances from the main cast. It is quite dark and bleak and so won't suit everyone but for what it is, its a good film, certainly not a predictable one.