The Rover Clip Crushes Robert Pattinson’s Spirit
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We may not get Mad Max: Fury Road for more than a year—it doesn’t open until May 15, 2015—but that doesn’t mean we’re going to make it through 2014 without at least Australian post-apocalyptic movie. Director David Michod is back with his follow up to the grim crime saga Animal Kingdom, with The Rover. Though the subject matter is vastly different, there is toughness, like old leather, that ties the two films together. The first full trailer appeared a while back, and now, just as the film is set to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, they’re back with the first clip.
If watching that trailer didn’t give you a good feel for just how grizzled The Rover is, this clip should do the trick. The story picks up a decade after the collapse of society, where the outback has become a lawless frontier wasteland. Violence is a way of life, and those who don’t become proficient at it don’t survive for very long. Rey (Robert Pattinson, still trying to scrape off those lingering vampire sparkles) is one of these people who don’t seem like he is meant for this world. When his brother injures him and leaves him for dead, he falls in with Eric (Guy Pearce), a lone drifter with a bone to pick with Rey’s former compatriots.
Nothing much actually happens in this clip, at least action wise. It’s all talk, but in a few words Eric basically crushes Rey and grinds him beneath his boot. Somehow, Rey still has faith in a higher power, believing that God has a plan for him and will keep him safe. Eric simply runs down the laundry list of ways that God is in no way living up to his side of the bargain. He’s put a bullet in him, left him abandoned in the middle of a harsh wilderness, and gave him a brother who doesn’t give a damn about him. Then he ends hit quite tirade with, “your death is going to come real soon.” Good lord, son, that is some serious shit.
Michod also wrote the script, based on an idea he tag-teamed with fellow Aussie Joel Edgerton (Warrior), and The Rover looks bleak beyond belief. Then again, when you’re tag line is “Fear the man with nothing left to lose,” that doesn’t indicate bright and happy times to come. I love this trailer. It’s dirty and dusty, and that shot where an upside down car goes skidding by in the background is damn near perfect. A24 picked up the distribution rights for this, and it opens in New York and Los Angeles on June 13, expanding to the rest of the country on June 20.
