Movie Reviews: The Rover, The Congress, Hector and the Search for Happiness
Set in Australia ‘ten years after the Collapse’, stars Guy Pearce as Eric, a loner whose car is stolen by an armed gang of bank-robbers in a remote Outback town. Rey (Robert Pattinson) is a simple-minded soul, and a badly wounded gang member who has been left for dead during the getaway. Determined to get his car back, Eric shanghais Rey — who knows where the gang will rendezvous — and sets off in pursuit. David Michôd’s film offers a pretty straightforward story, but it’s a gripping tale of obsession. Pearce is superb as the raddled, dispirited Eric, a brutal character who is as much animal as man as he tracks his prey with a disturbingly single-minded zeal. Pattinson, however, is even more impressive, playing a simpleton thug struggling to accommodate not only the fact that he is likely dying from his wounds, but also that his brother Henry (Scoot McNairy), a fellow gang member, has abandoned him in his hour of need. Beautifully shot by cinematographer Natasha Braier, the Outback becomes a character in its own right. The post-apocalyptic backdrop is deftly rendered too; vignettes of people hardened by extreme deprivation unfold as they battle one another and the elements for the last remnants of dwindling resources. A sweaty, grimy neo-Western, The Rover is an exhilaratingly bleak experience.
