Mad Max (1979)

An empty highway in a dystopian Australia, marked only by the few small settlements alongside it: this is the bleak world that George Miller's 1979 cult classic Mad Max inhabits.  One of the great low-budget success stories of all time, Mad Max made a star of Mel Gibson, in his first major as Max Rockatansky (the titular "Mad Max"), a policeman patrolling the barren highway.  As one of the films that brought Australian cinema to the attention international audiences, Mad Max spawned two sequels (with a third in development) and has had an immense influence on action films in the years since its release.

The film opens with several policemen, in heavily modified vehicles, chasing a criminal (The "Nightrider") and his girlfriend, in an equally heavily modified vehicle.  After four policemen wreck their cars in their attempts, they call in Max to finish the job: he completes the job with ease (and style).  Max wishes to retire from his dangerous profession, he has a wife and infant son depending on him, but circumstance rarely bends to one's wishes.  A nomadic and sadistic biker gang seeks revenge for the Nightrider's death; their destructive spree ends with the raping sand savage beating of a young couple.  Max and his friend "Goose" take one of the perpetrators into custody, but he is released due to the lack of evidence.  The man arrested was the leader's ("Toecutter") prodigy: they brutally murder Goose in retaliation.  Max becomes disillusioned with the nature of his profession and decides to take an extended vacation with his wife and child: but he can't avoid Toecutter and his gang forever.

The action scenes in the film are exemplary, made all the more impressive by the limited budget the filmmakers had to work with.  The car stunts present in the film are complex and precise, something rarely seen in films made outside of a major studio.  The film cleverly stretches the budget to allow for a feature-length running time.  The setting of the film was a very clever way to stretch the budget without compromising its vision, the bleakness of the natural environment makes it a believable setting for an oil-starved dystopia.  The cinematography of the film does exactly what it should: it evokes loneliness and the necessity for the brutality many of the characters exhibit.  The fact that most of the action scenes were done without the need for extensive special effects lends them a sense of realism that most action scenes in films of today lack (just stop, Michael Bay).

The acting in the film is outright cringe-worthy.  Most of the actors that performed in the film were unknowns, it should come as no surprise that most of them remained so for the entirety of their careers.  Mel Gibson is the only actor that truly does what can be considered "good work."  That being said, his acting has greatly improved in the three decades since he made this film and his performance as Max lacks any sense of real nuance.  Luckily for George Miller, his film is remembered for the action-scenes that made its reputation and not the "acting" that could easily have given it a totally different one.  A (minimal) facet of the film that should have been scrapped was the intensely unnecessary music played every time the police headquarters was shown: I could not help but to think of a corny '70s police procedural (Starsky would agree).

The film's message is a worthy one, inspired by the oil crisis of 1973, and holds ever truer by the day; the possibilities of an oil-starved future become all the more real by the day.  Alas, the message is overshadowed by Max's (complicated) exploits on the road.  The inspiration for the film is not apparent in the slightest in the finished product (with the exception of a few brief scenes) and I cannot help but feel that if more time was spent explaining why the world was like it was, it would be a much richer film.  I must give the filmmakers credit, they craft a (relatively) realistic future that does not bend the limits of believability (Waterworld, why did he have gills? why?).

Overall, Mad Max functions as a good action film, despite its low-budget, but fails as a warning of the possibilities of what our reliance on oil could cause.  That is truly a shame, as Mad Max could have been a defining film of the dystopian genre, and not just Mel Gibson's star-making vehicle (a 1974 Ford Falcon, to be precise).  The film is great as a mindless action film, but as a cautionary tale: Mad Max is truly underwhelming.

6/10

Note: This review was previously posted on another blog I wrote.