Great performances from Guy Pearce and a nearly unrecognizable Robert Pattinson, gorgeous cinematography and featuring some really suspenseful and chilling sequences, this is a really solid film. I think Animal Kingdom is ultimately better and had more to say, but this one is still definitely worth seeing. It's very slow-paced though, so not sure how it's going to fare when it expands. B+

robert pattinson playing a simpleton is his best performance to date

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

I kinda felt the same about this the same way I felt about Under the Skin. Has some interesting and admirable aspects but it's a little too underbaked for my taste. Robert Pattinson is pretty good in this.

oh, and probably one of the best scenes in the film is when 'Pretty Girl Rock' starts to play out of nowhere and RPatz half sings along. Made me laugh out loud.

The Rover

Australia really lends itself well to these post-apocalyptic thrillers, and Australia produces some compelling and interesting films each year, but unfortunately The Rover falls into the bracket of one of those films that fails to create any hook or intensity. It's a blank canvas throughout the film, and the director is holding a brush drenched in grey. It's just rather slow and dull, which was much of the problem with other Aussie-produced thrillers like The Proposition and Mystery Road, and other apocalyptic thrillers such as The Road. The cinematography is nice and it's shot well, it just needed some pace and editing. The score could have been improved too as it encouraged the tedium.

Guy Pearce was very good, and Robert Pattinson was passable. I didn't buy into the simple-Simon schtick that he tried to portray. He's just not a very good actor, and it shows here. He gets an A for effort, though. What's with the US accent in Australia? That didn't make much sense nor was it touched upon why that may be (the same for why US dollars are worth something and Aussie dollars aren't -- or why they are even using US dollars in the first place). My guess is that this isn't an "apocalypse" movie at all. It's a post-economic collapse movie. Anyway, I am pleased to have watched it because I had been anticipating it for a long time, but it fell short of expectations.

B

Well-deduced, Sherlock.