The Rover (15) 

Directed by David Michod 

3/5 

A WORLD brought to breaking point due to human greed and excess is epitomised in The Rover by one individual’s relentless and unforgiving search for his prized and only possession — his car.

The film is set in the bleak Australian outback 10 years after a massive Western economic collapse. 

Director and writer David Michod (Animal Kingdom) paints a grim and desolate picture of life in a disintegrating society with no rule of law, where it’s every man — and woman — for himself. 

Western-style, the film’s anti-hero protagonist Eric — a ruthless performance by Guy Pearce — is a farmer and hardened loner who has nothing to lose. 

Streaking down a dusty road, looking out of his dirty windscreen at the barren and unforgiving landscape, he pulls up at a Cambodian diner in the middle of nowhere. 

While he is having a drink a group of petty criminals steal his beloved car after crashing theirs. 

He immediately gives chase and along the way finds Rey (Robert Pattinson), the brother of one of the car thieves, who he forces to assist him in tracking them down. 

He is like a dog with a bone he won’t surrender as he searches for his car, the only thing that matters to him, and Pearce (pictured) is superb as the fierce man of few words but whose deadly eyes and expression speak volumes. 

Pattinson can put his Twilight days finally behind him on this showing. He provides a remarkable portrayal of the dim-witted Rey in what is his best performance to date. 

The treacherous and stark Australian landscape adds another dimension to the film’s depiction of despair and lack of hope in a world where life is cheap, only dollars have any monetary value and family pets end up on the menu. 

The Rover is a sad indictment of where we are still heading as a capitalist society, although you might well feel cheated by its surprising ending.