The Rover (Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson)

[Pounder]

Via Entertainment Weekly:

Australia was founded as a repository for crooks and criminals — a wretched hive of scum and villainy, like the British Empire’s own Mos Eisley. Of course, that was a long time ago and the Australian national demeanor has since shifted from “kill or be killed” to “live and let live,” but David Michôd’s gritty 2010 drama Animal Kingdom chronicled some of the country’s more modern criminal descendents. In his upcoming sophomore effort, The Rover, the director takes things even further.

Robert Pattinson plays a denizen of the Outback in the near future, after a worldwide financial collapse has sent many like him running to the still viable mines of the Australian desert. “It’s like a new gold rush,” says Michôd. “Where people from all corners of the world have come out to the desert to scrape out an existence. Petty criminals and miscreants and hustlers.” Guy Pearce, who had an uncharacteristically reserved role in Animal Kingdom, gets to sink his teeth into a nicely nasty part opposite Pattinson. “The basic story is really quite elemental,” says Michôd. “You’ve got a really dark, dangerous, murderous person in Guy’s character, and in Rob’s character you have a quite troubled and damaged, but beautiful and naïve, soul.”

Of course, just by its setting and basic plot, The Rover is poised to draw comparisons to one of the antipodean country’s most memorable cinematic contributions. “You put cars in the desert in Australia and people are going to think of Mad Max,” says Michôd. “And with all due respect to that film — and I stress that — I think The Rover is going to be way more chillingly authentic and menacing.”

[Visco.]

I still haven't seen Animal Kingdom but this sounds very interesting.

Robert Pattinson is a great actor who gets too much shit for doing the Twilight movies.

Guy Pearce is always good. Looking forward to it!

[Pounder]

Teaser Trailer:

THE ROVER - OFFICIAL Teaser Trailer HD - YouTube

[MikeScott]

Looks very good. Animal Kingdom was great! A gem!

[Mandalorian]

Originally Posted by MikeScott

Looks very good. Animal Kingdom was great! A gem!

I agree. Reminds me of a favorite of mine, No Country.

[KingRad]

Certainly looks interesting. I will definitely have to check it out.

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Pounder

Teaser Trailer:
THE ROVER - OFFICIAL Teaser Trailer HD - YouTube

Looks really phenominal and atmospheric, here's hoping the promise pays off.

[Lehnhart]

Trailer was good. Color me intrigued.

[cinemaphile]

moved up a month to 6/13/14

[Fluid]

Animal Kingdom is a mesmerisingly riveting film, so I look forward to anything new from this talented writer/director...

[Pounder]

My cinema is getting this tomorrow

[Chaotic]

Pearce is only exceptional, while Pattison is a revelation? jesus.

[newginafets]

Originally Posted by Chaotic

Pearce is only exceptional, while Pattison is a revelation? jesus.

Have u seen the movie tho?

[jamesdevil]

If Pattinson gives a hammier or less convincing performance the whole thing could have gone off the rails considering how vital he is to connecting the audience to what is going on. He was sublime. Especially the scene in the motel. Lawd.

[EPlay]

Saw this today and there were only about 4 others in the theater.

The story drew me in and I liked its unhurried pace -- the long beats of silence or inaction really ratchets up the tension. I'm a huge Guy Pearce fan and thought he was terrific. Never liked Robert Pattinson, but he was SOOOO good and the film really hinged on his performance.

Before going to the film, I had formed a guess as to why the car was so important to him but I'm glad I wasn't right. (I wouldn't have wanted that cliche.)

[growler]

Excellent acting! Not a film for everyone. Besides me, 2 other couples in the theater & both couples were talking & one was making noise with cellophane food during the quiet parts.

Not sure I will wish to revisit this film. So many things did not make sense or were not really believable.

[Show spoiler]I think ~ 1 week had gone by since anti-hero had his car stolen.

Why would the criminals NOT have smelled a dead dog in the trunk over a full week? Why would they not have looked into the trunk to see if there were valuables & THAT was why the crazy car owner risked is life in a futile attempt to get his car back?

What motivated the 1/2 wit to rescue the anti-hero? Could it really be looking for approval? Why the hell would ½ wit bother risking life to rescue the man who threatened to kill him & has been nasty to him? ½ wit had his brother’s truck. No need at all for hero. Unless he already decided to kill his brother for leaving him behind & wanted hero’s help. Or was grateful hero saved him from military guy at the motel.

[Astro Zombie]

Originally Posted by Pounder

My cinema is getting this tomorrow

Same. Saw a TV spot and it looks pretty good.

[Holmes]

A decade after an unexplained crisis changed and hardened the world, former farmer Eric (Guy Pearce) travels rural Australia, an itinerant lone wolf with a gun and a car. When thieves, wounded and on the run after a heist gone awry, steal his vehicle, he pursues them with single-minded ferocity. Along the way, he captures Rey (Robert Pattinson), the dim brother of one of the thieves, and the duo forge an improbable, hesitant bond over the course of their journey toward a violent final confrontation. Though in the spiritual vein of The Road and the Mad Max series, The Rover, the second feature by the gifted director of the Oscar-nominated crime drama Animal Kingdom, definitely earns a place unto itself on the top shelf of post-apocalyptic cinema.

Pearce, a magnificent actor with a subtle, but established industry presence in both the United States and his native Oz, has delivered any number of memorable performances in such films as L.A. Confidential, Memento, and The Proposition, but his turn here, a portrayal of Terminator-style drive disguising enormous spiritual pain, may be his finest to date. From his physicality to his delivery of the character's relatively infrequent dialogue, he exudes a pure, foul, burned, bruised volatility. The performance arouses both fear and pity in the viewer. Pattinson, his head shaved and his teeth yellowed, is also an essential component of the film's triumph. His striking catalog of tics and vulnerabilities (at once adorable and creepy) perfectly complements Pearce's hard-edged silence. Various peripheral players come and go, each further shading and complicating the harsh universe encircling the two main characters. Most memorable among them is Susan Prior as a country doctor, a healer and protector in a landscape tearing itself apart. In her few scenes, she conveys a touching, unusual blend of the philanthropic and the pragmatic.

The cataclysmic event itself may be left ambiguous, but the post-"collapse" world of The Rover is conceived and crafted with grit and imagination, drawing on visual peculiarities provided by Australia itself (such as ready-made suburban neighborhoods amidst dusty desolation) and various small moments which gesture toward the economic whole, including a raunchy store owner who, shotgun in hand, orders Pearce's character to buy one of his products or else. The film also features memorable sound design, including an unconventional original score which lacerates and rumbles; its frightening ambient textures elevate the sense of danger and dried-blood unease.

A

[Britnasty]

EXCELLENT FILM. Pattinson gives the performance of his career in my opinion. Multi layered and incredibly full of depth, I was very surprised. Guy Pearce gave an exceptional performance as well.

I found the film to be both odd and extraordinary. I sort of wish they would've expanded on why society collapsed, but in the realm of things it didn't matter.

My favorite scene had to be in which

[Show spoiler]Keri Hilson's "Pretty Girl Rock" gets piped in while the men are walking through the desert. It quickly cuts to Pattinson's Rey in the car singing along to the chorus. His character singing along to the words "Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful" seemed like such an odd juxtaposition, for a character who completely feels worthless to the world after being abandoned and left for dead by his brother. I also felt that this was a hint at his character being gay. I got this vibe, simply because Rey seems so frightened in the beginning to be drug around by Pearce's Eric, but by the films climax, he wants to make Eric proud and be loved.

Pattinson, to me, gave a career changing performance because he truly developed from beginning to end.

[Show spoiler]In the climax in which he has a gun pointed as a brother and he is beginning and pleading with him as to "why did you leave me for dead", broke my heart. Shattered me to the core. Instead of giving him a reason, Rey's brother simply just asks, "What did he do to you?". It amazed me how Pattinson's emotional depth in his face alone just broke me, that empty, thrown to the wayside with no care to the world look was just sad.

There were 4 people in my theatre besides me, and I heard one of the guys say at the films final shot, "What was that ending". I guess I understood the ending to be that

[Show spoiler]Pearce's Eric going through this intense, long journey just to bury his dead dog, whom had been in his cars trunk, was his last good act on this planet he could give. This man had been through so much, only to want to lay to rest his one true best friend. I also got the sense that him burying his dog, was also an ode to Pattinson's Rey. When Eric sees Rey laying lifeless on the ground, he breaks down. I think this here shows that he did have a love for Rey, as someone who in the situation could have hated Eric, but instead, wanted to be his friend and companion.

Such a beautiful, wonderful film.

4.5/5.

[Pounder]

Plan on watching this tomorrow. Was extremely busy this weekend but do want to catch this on the big screen.