Rent Rubber on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Quentin Dupieux
Directed by: Quentin Dupieux
Starring: Stephen Spinella, Roxane Mesquida, Wings Hauser
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
A homicidal car tire, discovering it has destructive psionic power, sets its sights on a desert town once a mysterious woman becomes its obsession.
Verdict
It's an arresting premise, but you can only coast so far on this plot. The movie runs out of steam long before the conclusion, though the last scene is a slight uptick. There's not much story after the first couple of scenes, and that's compounded with a meta story that's not that interesting and seems to only pad the run time. This movie fulfills the description, a killer tire, but very little else.
Skip it.
Review
This is one of those movies that made the rounds years ago due to the sheer ridiculousness of the premise. I didn't get around to watching it then, but I saw it's streaming so it's time to watch this movie.
It's a silly idea, and that makes you curious. How does a movie about a tire even work? The movie gets a bit meta as it explains that in some movies things happen for no reason. It's clear that's setting up this tire. Sometimes you don't get an explanation for a sentient tire. It's wild.
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| Robert the Tire |
We see this tire get up, and then learn how to roll. It's like watching a fledgling bird learn to fly. The tire encounters objects, rolling over things, and then the tire manifests psycho kinetic powers. I really like this introduction that treats the tire like an animal. After that, this movie becomes mindless. I wish the tire was more of a trapped animal killing to protect itself.
The meta story of people watching this tire is odd. It helps the pacing as we keep cutting back to it, but it is strange. It doesn't take long for this meta story to become strained. I want to see this tire, not a boring b plot.
The question quickly becomes, where does this movie go. The tire kills. So what? We see what this tire can do, but are there any other tricks? The other problem is with the limited budget and how this skips quite a bit of connecting story. It's a detriment to the movie when this already lacks story. This doesn't have any room to expand, and the side plot really just seems like an addition to fill time.
This started as a narrative about a tire that we see grow up before our eyes, experiencing the world. Then this devolves into mindless violence. I do like how this ends, but that could have been used to bolster the narrative and create more of a story. I'd guess it's a budget issue. The final visual could have created some neat scenes.
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