Review of The Rover (2014) by Harry W — 15 Jun 2014

As it was director David Michod's follow up to the Academy Award nominated Australian crime film Animal Kingdom, The Rover was one of the most anticipated Australian films of 2014.

The Rover was a very impressive film, and I actually found that I enjoyed it more than Animal Kingdom. The central reason that I felt that way was because it was an Australian Western and I've been waiting years for someone to produce one of those. It wasn't just a Western, it was a film about Australian society after an economic collapse where everything became a gritty and dry wasteland under the rule of criminal soldiers. So it was sort of a post-apocalyptic western reminiscent of one of Australia's most historically popular films, Mad Max. But I enjoyed The Rover more than Mad Max, especially because it was a lot deeper and more gritty.

The Rover is set in a complicated universe in the remaining dry wasteland of Australian country where everybody is armed with a weapon to look out for themselves and nobody can be trusted, a society where everyone is their own version of the law under the total rule of a criminal military. This is likely to please many viewers just as it annoys many others. While I found that the dry ambiguity about what relevance the soldiers actually had to society was important to the western theme, a lot of viewers may be displeased about the fact that the film never reveals the true nature of their role in the story. It makes suggestions and allows the viewers to make sense of it on their own, and those who cannot understand it or want it answered for them are likely to find many problems with The Rover. It's not worth being bothered by it though, because the fact is that the society is a quiet and deserted one when you can never be sure of what is going to happen or get all of your questions answered. If viewers understand the western virtues of the film and tie that into its depiction of a broken society, they are more likely to be able to appreciate The Rover. The western genre is not so popular anymore, and so therefore many people may not understand The Rover or value what it has to offer. But on behalf of David Michod, I think it is his finest work to date. It is a complex film which captures both western and post-apocalyptic themes in its story while remaining consistently simple yet still very involving. I was always drawn into The Rover, and it was enough to distract me from the slow pacing that affects the experience of many western films.

The Rover is a very ambiguous film, and it has very little dialogue which means that the characters are surrounded by mystery with only certain values about them coming to the surface. Most of them are the values of the cowboy, the value of individualistic freedom and the fearlessness to take fear into one's own hands. The main two characters are the disillusioned Eric who is very stoic and is careless as to if he lives or dies having been plagued by his criminal actions and more so the fact that nobody cares about them, and the mentally slow Reynolds who is blinded to the fact that he cannot live independently and is scared about being dragged into the western world. The two characters make an interesting lead duo, and they set the western archetypes up well.

But one of the best elements of the western themes in The Rover is the visual experience. The cinematography follows a stereotypical crime film style to give The Rover a modern feeling, but the dry landscape and design of everything in The Rover is a perfect western setting. Everything feels dead and dry, essentially monochromatic which emphasises the grim nature of the western universe that The Rover is set in. And the atmosphere of the film has the same mood as everything is intense and unpredictable since The Rover combines a mix of silence with striking sound effects and an occasional but consistently subtle musical score. The atmosphere in The Rover is very consistent with intensity and fear, and so it is a powerful experience.

And above it all, The Rover gains a lot of respect for the talents of its cast with its two lead actors giving unforgettable performances.

Guy Pearce is arguably one of the most well known Australian actors, but in The Rover he abandons everything iconic about him and adopts the look of a younger and more tan Hugo Weaving. If he wasn't so widely publicised for his role as the lead, I would not be able to recognise him in The Rover because all of his iconic elements are sacrificed as director David Michod strips him of everything down to the bare soul of a man. Most of the film has him going places with a blank look on his face and saying nothing, and you can tell that he is facing the haunting of some kind of inner torment. Guy Pearce's performance shows how far subtlety can go, because he is unpredictable in The Rover and his motivesd are always unclear without forgetting to be consistently interesting, and it goes to show how far the smallest acting abilities can go when someone talented is put to the test. Guy Pearce is a perfect casting choice for the role of Eric and he captures the role with true grit in one of his most impressive performances in recent years.

I used to like Robert Pattinson for his role as Cedric Diggery in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but had my entire opinion of him twisted after seeing the awful film Twilight. His role in The Rover is the complete opposite of his part in Twilight, because he has no glamourous elements whatsoever. He is put in the role of a gritty, not-so-attractive boy with mental issues dragged into a world of turmoil, and it is the greatest performance that he has ever given. Seriously, I was really impressed by him. It is because he constantly stays in the role, he never steps out of it. Every second he spends shaking in the part and stuttering in his line delivery, and it is all brilliant. Robert Pattinson is required to actually act in The Rover, and he does it very well by sinking down into fear and despair to portray a well written character who is fearful and never sure of what to do. Robert Pattinson gives it his all in The Rover and delivers an impressive and memorable performance which reaffirms my certainty that at heart he is a good actor.

So while it has the ambiguity and slow pace of all western films, The Rover is a brilliant Australian entry into the genre featuring a great universe for its setting and powerful performances.