Rubber (2010)

Review by Adam C. Thomas



Directed by Quentin Dupieux
Starring Stephen Spinella, Roxane Mesquida and Wings Hauser
"Rubber" is director Quentin Dupieux's in-your-face response to Hollywood's penchant for "No Reason". His argument is that Hollywood too often relies on the concept of "No Reason" rather than explaining things.
Overall, the movie is about a tire, named Robert, because "Bob the Tire" was probably too childish for his tastes. Now, this tire, Robert, develops sentience, and discovers he can make things explode with only the power of his mind. He leaves a trail of terror across the desert, and local law enforcement must now try and stop him. This movie would have been a brilliant send up of the "killer (fill in the blank)" movies, but the director had to go out of his way to make the viewer aware that it was all "for no reason". His attitude throughout the entire movie made him seem like a child throwing a tantrum. "Movies aren't how I want them to be! *sticks out tongue* I'm going to make a movie that makes NO SENSE AT ALL to get back at you!"
That's just a small portion of the movie, though. There is an entire different movie within the movie itself. I won't ruin it for you, and suffice it to say the movie-within-the-movie is brilliant as well, but the execution and the director's avant garde approach to the entire thing left a very nasty taste in my mouth. I wish Dupieux hadn't acted so butt hurt over the entire thing, I would have enjoyed this movie so much more.
The reason I didn't care for the particular message the director was sending out is because he misses the point of movies entirely. His argument that major motion pictures focus far too much on "no reason" is invalid for one reason: If movies were to focus on every detail of every character, all movies would be definitely longer than necessary, and boring for the most part. One of the main reasons people watch movies is to be entertained. Not everyone can make movies on par with Christopher Nolan, or Alfred Hitchcock, or Stanley Kubrick. Some people make movies to be entertaining, not these incredibly in depth character driven Oscar winning masterpieces. Some people just want to entertain people.
I wish this movie wasn't as pretentious as it was, because it really could have been a great movie. I give it a 5 out of 10.