Review: Rubber

       A police car approaches a man holding dozens of binoculars in the middle of the desert. As the car makes its way down the dirt road it knock over a number of flimsy chairs that had been put in its path. The car comes to a stop and a police officer comes out of the trunk of the car and delivers a soliloquy explaining the absurdity we just saw and the absurdity we are about to see. He asks questions like “why was E.T. brown?”, “why didn't the people in Texas Chainsaw Massacre ever go to the bathroom?” and “why did Adrien Brody's character in The Pianist have to hide from the Nazi's when he could play piano so well?” The answer he gives to all of these questions, and to the questions this film will leave you with, is simply “No reason.” What follows is a tribute to the philosophy of No Reason.

       Rubber is the story of Robert, a tire abandoned in the desert who inexplicably comes to life and finds itself with the ability to destroy anything with psychokinetic powers. At first Robert is content to lay waste to trash and small critters in the desert, but soon he makes his way to the highway where a mysterious woman drives by and Robert begins to attack people. You read that right, this movie is about a killer tire, the round rubber thing on your car, rolling around the desert blowing things up with psychic powers. Meanwhile there is an audience watching these events unfold through the binoculars we saw at the beginning of the movie. The audience is told that these events are part of a film, so it's understood that these people are supposed to be stand-ins for us, the people watching this movie. It's all very meta and slowly the lines between what is real and what isn't begin to blur. The police eventually figure out that the tire is behind the killings and they hatch a harebrained scheme to destroy it. The ending isn't a happy one, but that's immaterial. This movie isn't about the destination, it's about the crazy, crazy ride.

       

       This film is oddly entertaining. Things are constantly coming out of left field. Why are you holding a stuffed alligator under your arm? The acting isn't anything special, the star of the movie is, after all, an inanimate object. The practical effects to have the tire roll around the desert were pretty cool as they are several shots that left me guessing how they got the tire to roll like that. I enjoyed the blurring between reality and art, as even one of the spectators eventually crosses over into the “film.” Maybe "Rubber" is an homage, maybe it's a statement on horror films and their audiences, maybe it's a total goof. It's probably all of these things; ultimately it's not a strong-enough film to decide. But above all, if you're in proper frame of mind, it's an over-the-top, brain-teasing good time. Rubber is the best killer tire movie you will ever see.