What a thing to get worked up about in this day and age.

The Rover

(2014)

(SPOILERS) David Michod’s Outback thriller embraces a tentative future vision of pre-apocalyptic, post-economic collapse. It’s gauged not so far from the original Mad Max, and, by avoiding population centres, it avoids answering any detailed questions about how this former First, now Third, World country malingers on. It might have been better if the general thrust of Michod’s story had remained similarly unforthcoming. For the first 40 minutes or so, The Rover is stark, striking, and elusive. It remains a first rate piece of filmmaking right through to the climax, but the tale wilts into something a touch too tangible and familiar.

Michod, who wrote the screenplay and devised the story with pal Joel Edgerton, drops us in on Guy Pearce’s Eric, a beardy straggler in cargo shorts who has stopped in for water at a derelict dustbowl station come store when a trio of hoodlums (Scoot McNairy, David Field and Tawanda Manyimo) steel his wheels. Eric sets off in pursuit of his car, and, after a set back (via the butt of a shotgun), links up with witless Rey (Robert Pattinson) to recover it. Rey is McNairy’s brother, left for dead at the scene of their crime, and knows where the gang is headed.

We don’t know why Eric wants his car back so badly, which makes his unmotivated quest existentially engrossing. Is it merely because that’s the kind of thing people do in such a degraded world? The Rover would perhaps have been more powerful if it didn’t furnish answers; if we didn’t discover why Eric has devolved to this ruthless state, rather than depositing a great info dump of backstory at a convenient interlude, and if he didn’t flip his boot in the last scene and show us exactly why he went through all this. The first half of the picture is superior for the its elusiveness and visceral charge, fascinating in the way it resists getting up close to its characters and reasoning out their behaviour and environment.

The plot Michon settles on is thematically engaged but not as tonally satisfying. Choices fall into place a little neatly and cleanly. Hints have been dropped from the title down (is it Guy, full of wanderlust, is it a reference to a make of car, or is it all about a hound?) There’s the sequence at a veterinarian’s house where Eric looks meaningfully at hound in a cage. And there’s dumb, devoted Rey, who has been left by his former master (brother) and comes to the rescue (digging under a fence) when Eric is detained by squaddies. The point at which Eric has regained his car (and his dog), he considers just leaving the gang to their own devices. But his faithful new hound all but hangs out his tongue and wags his tail, persuading Eric to go inside and deal with those who stole from him. Eric’s depth of feeling for his pet makes a lot of sense; this is a world where it is easier to empathise with an animal than fellow humans (see also Mad Max 2).

Evidently the relationship between Eric and Rey is the core of The Rover, and the second half of the film is carried along by dint of the lead performances. But a mismatched dysfunctional buddy movie would have been one of the less interesting turns the picture could have taken after establishing itself. Pearce is customarily superb, essaying a character who makes Max Rockatansky look positively cuddly when he blows away a dwarf with the gun he cannot pay for. Pattinson’s chops will only come as a surprise to anyone who didn’t see him in Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis.

The antic edge of the post-apocalyptic genre is glimpsed occasionally; there’s an echo of the muted rawness and palpable tension of The Road, in an environment where killing is a simple fact of daily life (“You don’t learn to fight, your death’s going to come real soon”). There’s nothing as eccentrically peculiar as The Book of Eli’s cannibal couple, but there’s a pervading air of moral turpitude (the grandmother pimping her adolescent grandson) and twisted invention (the broken down circus, complete with dwarf, suggests someone’s let Gilliam loose on the set). And then there are there are the rows of crucified along the roadside.

It isn’t until the army intrudes upon the scene that we begin to learn a little too much. And, if we start to thing about Michod’s new world disorder it beings to seem a little doubtful. Given the nature of the collapse one wonders why currency has any currency at all amid this lawlessness (and why US dollars should be more desirable than Australian ones). Bartering over basics would surely make more sense.

This Oz is a sci-fi informed mishmash, rather than one that wholly makes sense if you try and break it down. That infusion of Chinese culture over the space of 10 years carries the conceit of a post-Blade Runner palimpsest, rather than something thoroughly thought through (this presumably extends beyond too; Rey speaks Mandarin, so unless he is a savant, the Chinese also have a foothold in the US). The American characters have travelled to Oz to seek work in the mines, and freight trains carry armed guards, but it’s probably best it helps not to ask too many questions about the whos, whats and whys. Perhaps the state of the nation is best summed up by Eric, who asks his oblivious military captor at one point, “Do you know it’s over for you too?” Complete anarchy is inevitable, the only question is when.

Michod could no doubt graduate to big budget films with little trouble (he’s attached to a Brad Pitt picture, based on Michael Hastings’ The Operators). An early shot finds a preoccupied Eric drinking water in the rundown store as a jeep tumbles past the window in a cloud of dust. The violence is punchy and visceral (Eric is a badass), so – even given Rey’s particular moment of misconceived gunplay at a motel – there’s little resonance to Eric’s sub-Unforgiven wisdom (“You should never stop thinking about a life you take. It’s the price you pay for taking it”). Michod ensures the action is both thrilling and unsettling, however; in the early scenes particularly, composer Anthony Partos utilises discordant violin to foreboding and disorientating effect.

Eric’s nihilistic ruminations include coldly disinterring Rey’s rote appeals to a beneficent God and a similarly callous rejection of his faith in his brother. Later, he opines that what hurt the most was not the act of killing his wife and her lover but that no one came after him; no one cared. Michod shows the limitations of his palette when he gives his characters voice, and so directs his screenplay with more acumen that it necessarily merits. Likewise, Pearce elevates the proceedings with his wiry intensity (Michod loves shooting his rangy frame from behind, taking in a widescreen landscape). As movies on the verge of societal breakdown go, The Rover wields an immediacy that is hard to beat, but its thoughts on the ease with which we lose our decency and connection to others don’t reverberate sufficiently to match the surrounding craft.

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) (SPOILERS) Avengers: Age of Ultron ’s problem isn’t one of lack. It benefits from a solid central plot. It features a host of standout scenes and set pieces. It hands (most of) its characters strong defining moments. It doesn’t even suffer now the “wow” factor of seeing the team together for the first time has subsided. Its problem is that it’s too encumbered. Maybe its asking to much of a director to effectively martial the many different elements required by an ensemble superhero movie such as this, yet Joss Whedon’s predecessor feels positively lean in comparison. Part of this is simply down to the demands of the vaster Marvel franchise machine. Seeds are laid for Captain America: Civil War , Infinity Wars I & II , Black Panther and Thor: Ragnarok . It feels like several spinning plates too many. Such activity occasionally became over-intrusive on previous occasions ( Iron Man II ), but there are points in Age of Ultron whe

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

Last Action Hero (1993) (SPOILERS) Make no mistake, Last Action Hero is a mess. But even as a mess, it might be more interesting than any other movie Arnie made during that decade, perhaps even in his entire career. Hellzapoppin’ (after the 1941 picture, itself based on a Broadway revue) has virtually become an adjective to describe films that comment upon their own artifice, break the fourth wall, and generally disrespect the convention of suspending disbelief in the fictions we see parading across the screen. It was fairly audacious, some would say foolish, of Arnie to attempt something of that nature at this point in his career, which was at its peak, rather than playing it safe. That he stumbled profoundly, emphatically so since he went up against the behemoth that is Jurassic Park (slotted in after the fact to open first), should not blind one to the considerable merits of his ultimate, and final, really, attempt to experiment with the limits of his screen persona.

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

Monte Carlo or Bust aka Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (1969) (SPOILERS) Ken Annakin’s semi-sequel to Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines tends to be rather maligned, usually compared negatively to its more famous predecessor. Which makes me rather wonder if those expressing said opinion have ever taken the time to scrutinise them side by side. Or watch them back to back (which would be more sensible). Because Monte Carlo or Bust is by far the superior movie. Indeed, for all its imperfections and foibles (not least a performance from Tony Curtis requiring a taste for comic ham), I adore it. It’s probably the best wacky race movie there is, simply because each set of competitors, shamelessly exemplifying a different national stereotype (albeit there are two pairs of Brits, and a damsel in distress), are vibrant and cartoonish in the best sense. Albeit, it has to be admitted that, as far as said stereotypes go, Annakin’s home side win

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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