REVIEW: RUBBER

My Rating:

"In the Steven Spielberg movie, E.T. why is the alien brown? No reason." "No reason" is the mantra of Rubber. It is a mantra that it is constantly drumming as the movie figuratively and literally rolls along from weird to crazy, and finally into the insane. A self described homage to the "no reason," Rubber is a crazy ride into the insane for precisely no reason.



For those brave enough to watch the prologue, I will let Lieutenant Chad (Stephen Spinella) explain a little more about the "no reason." It should go without saying there are spoilers below, so read and watch at your own peril.







So what is this movie about? Seems like a dumb question to ask after I just got done explaining that this movie has no reason, but I will go through the exercise. Rubber is a story about Robert, a homicidal maniac on a killing spree. I should also mention that Robert is a sentient tire who has the ability to blow up his victims with the power of his, uh, mind.

That seems like a ridiculous plot, and it is, but this story is woven into another larger meta story. Corralled on a hill top, watched over by the sadistic Accountant (Jack Plotnick) is a group of people, an audience, who are watching the events of Rubber in real-time. Rubber seems to be a movie within a movie, pretty deep for a movie about a killer tire, right? To tell you anything more about the story would be wrong, so lets move on shall we?

I applaud writer/director Quentin Dupieux, for attempting such an interesting movie. Part horror movie spoof, part film industry commentary. Dupieux wrestles with some interesting ideas in Rubber, but doesn't go far enough to develop either fully. There is a wonderful scene in which the movie basically asks, if there is no audience to watch, is there even a movie? It is his take on the old proverbial saying, if a tree falls in the woods and there is no one to see it, does it make a sound?

For an inanimate object, I was surprise with the amount of emotion Dupieux was able to instill into his tire. The awaking of the tire and the discovery of its "powers," is by far my favorite scene in this movie. The palpable joy that oozes out of Robert after his first kill as he strolls though the desert is awesome.

Rubber is definitely not a movie for everyone, you need to be in the right mood for a movie like this. While by all means not a perfect movie, for those who don't mind a lot of "no reason," Rubber is a must see.


Released: November, 2010
Directed by: Quentin Dupieux
Written by: Quentin Dupieux
Length: 1 hr 22 mins
Rating: R
Cast: Stephen Spinella, Roxane Mesquida, Wings Hauser, Haley Ramm