Starring: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy
There's something about the Australian outback that brings a sense of almost animalistic energy on the screen, like a tiger ready to pounce and that sense is very much at the heart of The Rover; a science-fiction thriller about a solitary man in the wilderness played by Guy Pearce teaming up with a simple-minded young American named Rey (Pattinson) as they both, for different reasons, go on the trail of Rey's brother (McNairy).
There have been comparisons to Mad Max (1979) given the setting and the heavy use of cars in the plot, but the film put me in mind of the brilliant but lesser known Wake In Fright (1971) which also gave rural Australia a real sense of macho menace amidst the isolation. Indeed, the sparsity is the film's main asset with some of the tensest movie sequences in recent memory but also its main fault in isolating the viewer and sometimes slipping into artsy pretence. The performances are good though, particularly Robert Pattinson, vaguely looking like a young Tom Hanks and shambling (in a good way) through a performance Rey, whilst Guy Pearce's lead is, pleasingly, as impenetrable as the film, frustratingly, sometimes is.
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