Rough Stuff (2017) Reviews

• Action filled four-wheel drive fun!

  lizzieprince2018-04-11

  Loved this film! It was wonderfully different to the usual movie fare. The cinematography was beautiful, I actually felt as if I was in the forest with the rovers too!; lots of action, not in the Hollywood way, but fast paced and exciting. Betrayals and fab car chases peppered with humour and Aussie spirit. What's not to like? Really enjoyable.

• Green Aussie comedy action - recycled jokes but still fun

  joebloggscity2018-04-13

  This is one that I watched in passing lately, and it's a fun little filler for time. Recycling various jokes from similar action adventure thrills into an environmental tinged movie, we have gold diggers, mysterious men, greedy capitalists, slackers and the obligatory poor little rich girl falling in love with the hunk with a heart! So you can already figure out the storyline, so no need to go thru that. We have here a low budget movie which is daft but fun enough. Enough jokes to keep you going despite nothing home to write home about. For the director and actors it's a good jumping point to something else (you got to begin somewhere) and in time they will look this with a smile. As always, the film is stolen by the slackers/stoners, in this movie played by Sam Glissan ('Scraps'). He and his lady are the two best things here. As it's derivative etc, it wasn't for me but i still went with it. Reminds me of those tv movies that used to come on on a Friday evening to fill in the time when i was a kid, and sometimes they were a lot of fun, Look, I think you'll still go along with this. One for Saturday afternoon when nothing else is on, and you know what you'll leave with a smile. Enjoy.

• A fuel-injected thrill ride

  eddie_baggins2017-12-14

  Driving into local cinemas in March, Australian grown independent film (and labour of love) Rough Stuff offers up a rollicking adventure through the bushy wildlands of New South Wales and becomes one of the more exciting locally made adventures for quite some time in the process. Debut writer/director Jonathan Adams has tapped into Australia's long time love for 4×4 driving, the thrill of getting off the main road and seeing where that may take you, and combined that with a quest for treasure, a fight for survival against a maniacal bush ranger and an environmental activist group trying to stop the big, bad corporation from destroying our natural beauty, and it all works together to combine and give Rough Stuff an unpredictable and often exhilarating narrative push. Sure to appeal to car lovers and thrill-seekers, Adams hasn't neglected the core ingredients of a good feature film, with Rough Stuff providing a constant stream of laughs to compliment the off-road exploring, that gives us ample dirt-track car chases and some fairly hairy stunt work. Add in a bunch of characters that create a rag-tag group of heroes, anti-heroes and villains and you'll be glad you came along for the ride. Led by Gareth Rickards as the rough and ready rover Buzz, Rough Stuff offers one of most likeable casts of misfits and miscreants we've seen in a local production for some time. With able support from Vincent Andriano and Sam Glissan as Buzz's off-road loving sidekicks Abe and Scraps, and memorable supporting turns from Hayley Sullivan and Jamie Kristian as members of the vegan eco-group that have teamed themselves up with Buzz and his crew to bash and crash their way through the thick bushlands of the Australian landscape, Rough Stuff has somebody and something for everyone while Adams and his team behind the camera have worked hard to capture some truly stunning action and shots of the Australian vistas, that will likely have overseas watchers jumping on the nearest plane to come and explore the great outdoors that lay at our doorstep. When Rough Stuff clicks into gear, it provides an exciting, visually spectacular thrill ride that offers up something unique and different to what we've seen in local productions before. While its "rough" around the edges in some areas, Rough Stuff is set to be a favourite amongst the many outdoor 4×4 explorers that inhabit our fair shores, and this fun and likeable adventure is one of those rare local productions that has a broad enough appeal to become an overseas favourite as well as one of the most easily accessible films from the growing list of quality, locally made features. 3 ½ shovels out of 5

• Hidden Gem: Great Action Adventure Loving Fun from Down Under!

  Dark_Lord_Mark2018-04-30

  Where did this movie come from. I saw this in early 2018 and had nothing to go on besides a great trailer that seemed fun. This movie was incredible and truly a hidden gem that deserved more buzz. The film has different plots that intersects. It's an adventure film, with some action and some chase scenes and really good acting. Characters who are brave and conflicted play the parts well. Characters with morality, show their chink in the armour. It is just a fun overall movie and solid action adventure comedy. It's a film that makes fun of tree huggers, and takes some twists and turns along the way. You end up liking the main characters for as the story makes you pull for the macho men and the lost tree huggers. There is a really good chase scene involving 4x4's; just an awesome scene. This movie is fun, macho and unappologetic for it. If you like fun movies, that has action adventure, this is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED viewing. 9.5 out of 10.

• There's fool's gold in them there hills

  shakercoola2018-07-28

  An overlong adventure which suffers for its poor editing and storyboarding. It has a shifting tone - it can't decide whether to be an action-comedy or a straight adventure film. While there is a good soundtrack and a fun sense of adventure as it rolls, the dialogue misfires. We had a good Spielbergian type mystery villain for a while which kept up the tension but it drained away by the third act. From then on, frankly, I didn't care what happened. A very big explosion was probably needed at the end of the convoluted plot, or a payoff that justified the investment in the main character. Instead we get a crowbarred romance spot followed by a stub of an ending.