(2011) **
Rubber is set in the Mojave Desert and opens with a sheriff getting out of his squad car, staring at the camera, and delivering a monologue about the nature of movies and the audiences who watch them. He points out that a lot of things happen in movies for “no reason” however we accept these things without question because, in a nutshell, we are all dopes. You might argue that he has a point given that anyone watching this monologue is preparing to watch a movie about a killer tire.
When the sheriff finishes his monologue we see that an “audience” has been brought into the desert with binoculars in order to watch the movie play out from afar. Periodically we watch the audience react to the ridiculous story unfolding before them. Eventually they are given poisonous food and they all perish (more on that in a moment).
Rubber is the story of a tire that comes alive for “no reason”. After rousing itself from the sand, it shakily begins traveling across a seemingly endless desert road first crushing a water bottle and then a scorpion. It soon figures out that it can kill bigger game via telekinesis (i.e. Scanners) beginning with small animals and eventually humans.
Not quite as dumb as it sounds yet not nearly as clever as it wants to be, Tire has some game. The cinematography is better than it should be and director Quentin Dupieux does an adequate job convincing you that the tire is alive by imbuing it with subtle nuances. The film is quite graphic as people literally explode when they encounter the rubber menace. Unfortunately Dupieux chooses to spend too much time breaking down the 4th wall with the “audience” rather than focusing on the homicidal tire. His point, if there is one, seems to be that we will consume anything no matter how stupid.
