“You don’t learn to fight, your death’s gonna come real soon”.
To make a movie in Australia, any movie, is a pretty big and rare achievement. There just isn’t a lot of money floating around, or massive studio system to fund them. To make a movie in Australia that gets noticed by a mainstream audience locally, or especially in America, is an even bigger achievement. To be an Australian whose debut movie gets Oscar attention is all but unheard of. Which is why David Michod’s follow up to Animal Kingdom has been one of the movies I’ve looked forward to in 2014. Which is also why I’ve really been wanting The Rover to be awesome
Opening “10 years after the collapse” on the dusty, desert roads of outback Australia, “the collapse” never gets any more explanation, but this is some destruction of civilisation type shit we’re dealing with here. Stopping at a ramshackle bar, Eric (Guy Pearce) is complacent enough to have his car stolen by three dudes obviously on the run from something. Their cryptic, panic fuelled conversation lets us know that their current predicament has something to do with one of the three, Scoot McNairy as Henry, and his absent brother. (more…)
Bored and Dangerous 