Mad Max

Mad Max (1979)

Runtime: 94 minutes

Directed by: George Miller

Starring: Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keyes-Byrne, Steve Brisley

From: Kennedy-Miller Productions

Here’s a movie that I hadn’t seen before but yet should have done so sooner than I did. This is the first in the Mad Max series-obviously-and with the recent announcement that the fourth in the series (Fury Road) is FINALLY going to be made and released in 2011 (talks of a fourth movie have been going on for more than 20 years now!), so why not talk about the first one here?

It’s a tale set “a few years from now” in a wasteland future where chaos and disorder reign, the cops were all leather outfits and as a chase passes by a small Australian town, tow trucks follow the action, knowing that they’ll end up being in use sooner or later. Max Rockatansky (Gibson; that’s quite the name) is considered the best cop when it comes to these pursuits. The movie opens with a big car chase out of the gate and the end result is Max chasing a low-level villain (a member of a biker gang) known as The Nightrider, and Nightrider crashes his car and is killed instantly. The crazy biker gang-led by The Toecutter (Keyes-Byrne)-is upset over one of their own dying and they get revenge due to that and an incident where another member gets arrested but released due to every citizen being too afraid to testify against them. They feud with each other and after some horrific incidents, Max goes on the warpath, and it’s a great thing.

The entire movie had a weird tone and vibe to it, especially with the crazy biker gang. A few times I was a little perplexed but it didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the flick. It overall goes with the flow of the movie and it works amongst all the action and the awesome car chases as against what he wanted to have happen, Max started to turn into the type of person that he was seeking revenge against, adding subtext to the proceedings. So, I give this a high recommendation and eventually I’ll get around to seeing the even more beloved The Road Warrior and the not so beloved Beyond Thunderdome (a.k.a. The One With Tina Turner; it’s the only one of the three that I remember seeing at least a few minutes of in the past before last night), but I don’t know when that’ll be as the rest of this month will probably be busy for me, and that goes for updating this also, but I’ll try to add one or two more before the month is over with.

Oh, and it has to be said that there’s a scene an hour in with Jessie (Samuel) where you see that she’s wearing Uggs! I kid you not. I know that they were around back then and it was an Australian invention, but I hadn’t even heard of them until a few years ago and I was never expecting to see them here. That scene has a flub as for the rest of it she has on sandals, but if you look for it you’ll see it.