Review of The Rover (2014) by Kuldip S — 05 Jul 2016

The Rover is probably the most frustrating film I've seen all year.

The film opens with the caption "10 years after the collapse", setting up the post-apocalyptic nature of this film, set in the Australian outback. Sound familiar? Well, Mad-Max this ain't.

If I were to compare it to another film with a similar setting, it would be "The Road", except with none of the gravitas that film so expertly captured.

We follow Eric, a character portrayed by Guy Pierce as he has his car stolen and stops at nothing to reclaim it from three apparently dangerous criminals. I say apparently because they are never actually shown committing any crime (except for the car theft) and never kill or injur anybody intentionally.

We learn that one of the criminals (Henry) has a younger brother, played by Robert Pattinson, that was left for dead at the scene of the heist, however this unwanted member of the gang reappears soon after as Erics dim witted, redneck hostage. and the two of them travel on a week long journey to reclaim Erics beloved car and murder a lot of people along the way.

The cinematography is fantastic - the shots and cuts are slow paced and beautiful. The acting is also a strong point, with Pierce and Pattinson both giving nuanced, emotional performances. But this all becomes irrelevant as the plot and dialogue are so sub-par.

Things happen, words are spoken, but none of it comes together.

The violence in the film is incredibly high-impact and I thought was very realistically portrayed and at times hard to watch, however one line of dialogue by Pierces character causes a huge contradiction in this regard.

In my opinion, this is not a good film. There is no story, and none of the characters have any redeeming qualities. It wasn't absolutely terrible; as I said, the acting and the way it was shot are both very strong points, But they can't save the lack of story or engaging characters.