Bleak, brutal, and ultimately pointless, the film stars Guy Pearce as a man whose car is stolen and who won't rest until he not only gets it back but also punishes, with extreme prejudice, the dirtbags who took it.

The Rover equals only sporadically the fraught tension of Michôd's debut, Animal Kingdom (2010), but its horrors feel baked-in and genetic.

That final surprising coda (it surprised this reviewer, anyway) goes some way towards making sense of the whole mad enterprise.

Like Rey, 'The Rover' is simple without being simplistic, wandering without being directionless, and solitary without being one-note.