Ty Revisits "The Rover"

Last night I was flipping through the channels and came upon a movie I saw years ago. The movie is "The Rover". I kind of remembered it, but it was lost to time for me. So I decided to revisit it. My wife is out of town, my kids were asleep and I had just watched the premiere of "Better Call Saul".

"The Rover" is better than I remembered, and I had forgotten a good amount. I remembered liking it, but it did not stay with me. This time it will definitely stay with me. The movie takes place in a dystopian future in the Australian outback. There has been an economic collapse and people are just trying to get by. A gang comes to a guy's house and steals his car. He sets out to get his car back, and that is when the movie gets bleak and scary and dark. There are two main people in this movie, Guy Pearce and Robert Pattison. There are other actors, but the movie is really about their two characters. Guy Pearce is the gentleman that gets his car stolen from him. Pattison plays one of the gang members that gets left behind and Pearce uses him to help him get his car.

This movie is good. It has an eerie feel to it. There are moments where I was genuinely frightened. There are other moments where the silence has you on the edge of your seat just waiting to see what happens next. The movie looks beautiful too. For it being a dystopic wasteland, Australia looks very pretty on film. The mountains and the outback are beautiful to look at on screen.

What really makes this movie work, what makes it memorable for me now, are Pearce's and Pattison's performances. Pattison really knocks it out of the park. This may be one of the first movies he was in post "Twilight" that actually had me shocked at how well he acts. He plays Rey. Rey is slow, reliant and acts out of character from time to time. He also does some things that are incredibly smart. Pearce's character, Eric, learns pretty early on that Rey can help him. Pattison truly embodies Rey. I bought his performance tenfold. I thought he did a masterful job. He really had me worried about him the whole movie. I was afraid he would find some way to mess it all up. He does, but in all reality, it is not his fault. He does help Eric get what he is after. There is a certain scene where Rey tells Eric how and when to get into the house with his former gang, and it is so well played. Then the director follows it up with another scene that shows Rey in the car listening to music and you can see his childish behavior. It is perfect. Pearce is furious and angry and determined. He has one goal in mind and will do anything it takes to get there. Pearce plays Eric with a quiet determination that flies off the screen. I openly rooted for him to win. I wanted him to get his car. I did not care who he had to get rid of to get there. I felt his anger towards Rey at times. I sided with him in every scenario. I wanted him to do everything he did in the movie. It was an even better performance than Pattison's.

I highly recommend this movie for fans of sci fi and westerns. It covers both genres incredibly well. But the real winner, the real reason to watch this movie is for Pattison and Pearce's performance. They are so, so good. They nailed it. They were magnetic. They should have gotten award consideration. They ruled.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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