Village Voice by Amy Nicholson

The Rover might not be about anything at all, but the dust it stirs up sticks to you after you leave the theater.

Los Angeles Times by Kenneth Turan

There is nothing noble about Eric's mission or about the considerable violence he resorts to to get the job done, but Pearce's willingness to give him an integrity of purpose mixes well with Michôd's intense, controlled direction and his ability to blend unexpected, empathetic character moments with all the killing.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch by Joe Williams

The Rover is a sterling example of the new Australian noir.

The Playlist by Jessica Kiang

Bleak, brutal and unrelentingly nihilist, and with only sporadic flashes of the blackest, most mordant humor to lighten the load, it feels parched, like the story has simply boiled away in the desert heat and all that’s left are its desiccated bones. In a good way.

Variety by Scott Foundas

Michod’s sophomore feature isn’t exactly something we’ve never seen before, but it has a desolate beauty all its own, and a career-redefining performance by Robert Pattinson that reveals untold depths of sensitivity and feeling in the erstwhile “Twilight” star.

CineVue by John Bleasdale

For most post-apocalyptic films, the nightmare is really a disguised fantasy. In Michôd's excellent The Rover, the nightmare is real.

The Dissolve by Keith Phipps

While Michôd never satisfactorily develops the central relationship, The Rover is still a showcase for two strong performances.

Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern

The Rover, is anything but lively, though it's long on menace, often violent and consistently fascinating.

TheWrap by Diane Garrett

The Rover is less an allegory than a suggestion how bad things could become. It's well made, and it's disturbing, if not overly passion inducing.

McClatchy-Tribune News Service by Roger Moore

As violent and primal as “Animal Kingdom,” but not as brisk. The film grinds to a halt in between confrontations. And those shoot-outs are simple, direct and bloody, not “staged” in the Hollywood sense.

The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy

Always commanding attention at the film’s center is Pearce, who, under a taciturn demeanor, gives Eric all the cold-hearted remorselessness of a classic Western or film noir anti-hero who refuses to die before exacting vengeance for an unpardonable crime.

The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

Michôd creates a good deal of ambient menace in The Rover; Pearce has a simmering presence. But I felt there was a bit of muddle, and the clean lines of conflict and tension had been blurred: the dystopian future setting doesn't add much and hasn't been very rigorously imagined.

IndieWire by Eric Kohn

Like its tattered setting, The Rover is scattered with intriguing ideas never successfully fleshed out.

Hitfix by Drew McWeeny

While there are some very strong performances in the film, the movie is inert, dramatically speaking, and covers such familiar ground that I can't really recommend it.

Film.com by Jordan Hoffman

A dark, dreary and dull “Mad Max in Neutral” from director David Michôd (“Animal Kingdom”) that tries to pass off its blunt narrative and repetitiveness as some sort of style.

The Telegraph by Tim Robey

Michôd’s film consciously plays like an outback western, peppered with jagged and unpredictable outbursts of hard brutality. But it could do with losing control a little more often – and with establishing the dangers of its dog-eat-dog world more precisely.