It’s no Mad Max, but The Rover, a thriller set in a bleak post-apocalyptic world, delivers a visceral, exciting experience. At least for a while.

Starring Guy Pearce and written and directed by David Michôd (Animal Kingdom), The Rover follows a disheveled loner who pursues a band of criminals after they steal his car. Along the way, he encounters a nearly incomprehensible Robert Pattinson and gets himself into all kinds of other trouble.

I often multitask while watching movies on DVD—after all, I have movie reviews to write, people to see—and am always impressed when a movie manages to truly grab my attention. Almost immediately, The Rover, with its crisp, bleached out visuals, gritty atmosphere and mesmerizing cinematography, had me hooked.

The Rover’s plot is simple, but Michôd shifts from one strong sequence to the next. Through it, he establishes a sad, hopeless world that isn’t as mesmerizing or original as the one set forth in Mad Max, but still complex and intriguing. Consistently tense and splattered with bursts of violence, The Rover moves along at a fast clip.

Unfortunately, the film does lose some steam in the middle; its lack of real plot begins to show as Pearce’s character encounters one situation after another, none nearly as captivating as those found in the first half hour. Still, Pearce is terrific in a grisled, give-no-shit kind of way.

The Rover isn’t particularly unique, but it is well executed and exciting. That is more than enough reason to make this a worthwhile road trip.

Review by Erik Samdahl. Erik is a marketing and technology executive by day, avid movie lover by night. He is a member of the Seattle Film Critics Society.