10 Great Movies About Men In The Wilderness

Guy Pearce and Robert Pattison bonded over the dust and bones in this bleak crime drama, set in a wasteland where resources and emotions were in distinctly short supply. It was easy to view the result as Mad Max with rubbish cars, but there's more to The Rover than meets the grit-filled eye.

Pearce brought the name Eric back under the "tough guy" umbrella, as his burnt-out drifter with that handle cruised the parched earth of a post-crisis Oz, a country which had experienced the mother of all recessions. Having gotten caught up in the activities of a gang of scavengers, Eric rescued one of their number, the wayward Rey (Pattison). From there their paths were entwined on a road going nowhere pretty.

This film burns the merciless quality of the Outback into your retina with the heat of the blazing Antipodean sun. Eric is arguably Pearce's best role: shaped by the wilderness, more instinct than man. You hope Rey won't finish up the same way. Unfortunately the movie doesn't do hope.