‘The Rover’: Back in ‘Mad Max’ territory, Guy Pearce will kill to get his car back
In a lawless, post-apocalyptic Australian outback, the remaining shards of humanity fight to survive, often coming into conflict over scarce resources. If that sounds a bit like “The Road Warrior,” it should, both in the coveted use of vehicles as an extension of one’s machismo and the dearth of precious petrol, but what transpires in “The Rover” is less baroque and more intimate and rooted in the now. In fact, it feels strangely more akin to John Hillcoat’s “The Proposition,” which took place nearly a century and a half ago, and fittingly enough the star of that macabre outback western, Guy Pearce, pops up here again, finding himself back in a vast deserted wasteland punctuated with sparse outposts of human occupation trying to cling to civility in an otherwise orderless nowhere.
Pearce plays the barely named Eric, an aloof loner with an ostensible military background. The film opens with the tacit protagonist making a pit stop at an isolated karaoke bar (which looks more like a grimy torture chamber from a “Saw” movie than a place of merriment) for some water and a bite when a speeding truck laden with unsavory lads crashes, and its occupants quickly disembark and carjack Eric’s sleek, lean coupe. That’s it – from there on out, Eric will stop at nothing to reclaim his car. It’s a straight-up one-noter like “Duel,” propelled by Eric’s simmering resolve and the ever pungent question as to what else has to be in that car to make Eric want it that bad. Continue reading
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