The Rover (R, 1:43) — other: drama, 3rd string, original, OSIT cynics
We know this from the opening title card: It's Australlia, 10 years after "the collapse". That's the last nod to science fiction in the film, which is otherwise about hard, desperate, slightly crazed men in a hard, desperate society that might as well have been medieval Japan.
We learn this thru dialog: 4 such men have committed some kind of crime (never seen, even in flashback), and 3 of them are fleeing from the scene in their truck. The older of a pair of brothers, Henry (Scoot McNairy), has been shot in the leg and is in the truck; the younger, Rey (Robert Pattinson), a dimwit, was shot in the side and left for dead, but he wasn't.
We see this in the opening scene: A gaunt, grizzled, bearded loner in cargo shorts (Guy Pearce), sits brooding behind his steering wheel before bestirring himself to enter a ramshackle, isolated general store in the outer part of the Australian outback, where they sell limited amounts of expensive food, very limited amounts of very expensive petrol, ammunition, and serious, serious suspicion. The credits claim that this is Eric, but I don't recall him ever mentioning it, not even later, to the grandma who continuously importunes him for his name. As he nurses his mason jar of hooch, the overturned truck containing the 3 squabbling fugitive thugs slides by outside the store window.
That was probably the most expensive action scene in the whole film, which would have qualified as a bargain-basement production were it not for the presence of its 2 stars. There are few characters, almost no sets or locations, maybe 20 total costumes (mainly army surplus), and even dialog that appeared to be dispensed with eye-droppers. Screenwriter (and director) David Michôd was clearly not being paid by the word; the Pearce character in particular is monumentally taciturn.
The thugs get out of their truck, spot Eric's car standing nearby, hotwire it, and take off again. He immediately leaps into their truck (which has come to rest upright but entangled), rocks it out of its snare, and takes off after them. When they finally both stop for a confrontation, he is monomaniacal on a particular subject: "I want my cah back!" he repeatedly insists, in the thick Australian accent that makes it difficult to understand half of what limited dialog the movie offers up. And, despite the fact that the thieves are holding guns on him, he seems determined to beat that car out of them.
When he wakes up, they're long gone, but shortly thereafter, as he's trying to figure out what to do next, the halfwit Rey shows up, looking for the brother who abandoned him. These 2 form an uneasy partnership and set out on the trail of the desperados. Along the way they will encounter multiple hard-core and hard-luck types, and there will be a plethora of danger, punctuated by sudden, violent death.
About 99 minutes into the 103-minute run time, we finally find out why Eric was so damn obsessed with getting his cah back.
As I said, hard, desperate, and perhaps more than just slightly crazed.
We know this from the opening title card: It's Australlia, 10 years after "the collapse". That's the last nod to science fiction in the film, which is otherwise about hard, desperate, slightly crazed men in a hard, desperate society that might as well have been medieval Japan.
We learn this thru dialog: 4 such men have committed some kind of crime (never seen, even in flashback), and 3 of them are fleeing from the scene in their truck. The older of a pair of brothers, Henry (Scoot McNairy), has been shot in the leg and is in the truck; the younger, Rey (Robert Pattinson), a dimwit, was shot in the side and left for dead, but he wasn't.
We see this in the opening scene: A gaunt, grizzled, bearded loner in cargo shorts (Guy Pearce), sits brooding behind his steering wheel before bestirring himself to enter a ramshackle, isolated general store in the outer part of the Australian outback, where they sell limited amounts of expensive food, very limited amounts of very expensive petrol, ammunition, and serious, serious suspicion. The credits claim that this is Eric, but I don't recall him ever mentioning it, not even later, to the grandma who continuously importunes him for his name. As he nurses his mason jar of hooch, the overturned truck containing the 3 squabbling fugitive thugs slides by outside the store window.
That was probably the most expensive action scene in the whole film, which would have qualified as a bargain-basement production were it not for the presence of its 2 stars. There are few characters, almost no sets or locations, maybe 20 total costumes (mainly army surplus), and even dialog that appeared to be dispensed with eye-droppers. Screenwriter (and director) David Michôd was clearly not being paid by the word; the Pearce character in particular is monumentally taciturn.
The thugs get out of their truck, spot Eric's car standing nearby, hotwire it, and take off again. He immediately leaps into their truck (which has come to rest upright but entangled), rocks it out of its snare, and takes off after them. When they finally both stop for a confrontation, he is monomaniacal on a particular subject: "I want my cah back!" he repeatedly insists, in the thick Australian accent that makes it difficult to understand half of what limited dialog the movie offers up. And, despite the fact that the thieves are holding guns on him, he seems determined to beat that car out of them.
When he wakes up, they're long gone, but shortly thereafter, as he's trying to figure out what to do next, the halfwit Rey shows up, looking for the brother who abandoned him. These 2 form an uneasy partnership and set out on the trail of the desperados. Along the way they will encounter multiple hard-core and hard-luck types, and there will be a plethora of danger, punctuated by sudden, violent death.
About 99 minutes into the 103-minute run time, we finally find out why Eric was so damn obsessed with getting his cah back.
As I said, hard, desperate, and perhaps more than just slightly crazed.