Directed by David Michod

The Rover is David Michod’s sophomore effort, which up until a certain point, had everything going for it. It had a simple revenge story for a plot, set in a bleak, future Australia; it had Guy Pearce; it had an audience drooling in anticipation after seeing Animal Kingdom. Unfortunately, Michod’s film is ultimately something of a hollow experience. Instead of making a film complex through it’s simplicity, the film doesn’t offer any sort of believable characters, visual storytelling or most importantly, any real reason for the audience to care. The film could have been cut in half and would make no difference to the plot whatsoever: character exposition was delivered through obligatory dialogue-over-campfire scenes, and the film lost all form of suspense from repeating the same scene structure throughout the film. Also a massive continuity error in the first ten minutes is just inexcusable. Soundtrack was interesting though.

C