Mad Max
All franchises
started somewhere and one of the more successful franchises, the Mad Max
franchise, started with a low-cost production called, yes, “Mad Max”. According
to Wikipedia it holds the Guinness Book of Records for most profitable film ever.
Those two facts are likely why it earned its place on the List.
In some
undefined future that looks very much like the seventies, road anarchy is the
order of the day. On the mostly empty roads outside of Melbourne, the Main Patrol
Force (MPF) has largely free hands to combat misbehaving traffic. Goose (Steve
Bisley) and Max (Mel Gibson) are officers of the MPF, wearing leather suits and
driving supercharged police cars. They get involved in a war with a biker gang
led by an ugly fellow named Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne), a fight that eventually
costs the life of Goose. As a result, Max resigns.
Later on,
Max is enjoying a little vacation with his wife, Jessie (Joanne Samuel), and
their toddler son. Again, they encounter the biker gang who pick out Jessie for
a target. Soon the little family is on the run, but eventually the bikers catch
up and (SPOILER) do something terrible to tip Max over the edge and send him
down vigilante road.
It is not a
terribly complicated story and neither the acting nor the setting are
particularly impressive. Both scream budget. There is very little to indicate
that this is some future and the roads which are 90% of the sets are just empty
country roads. I have been on those roads, and they are very… empty. The
dialogue is not great, but mostly good enough to avoid outright embarrassment and
Mel Gibson is likely the only actor with a standout performance.
What “Mad Max”
does is show us a lot of burning rubber. Right from the beginning we are getting
high speed chases, cars and bikes being rammed off the road and supercharged
engines. The dominant sound of the movie is not dialogue, music or gunfire, but
that of revving engines. And those are no ordinary engines. Indeed, there is
almost a glee to those sounds.
I have not
myself followed the Mad Max franchise. Once, on a plane, I decided to start so
I watched this one, but, while I did not outright dislike it, I was not
particularly impressed either and I did not follow through with the later
installments. Given the amount of money “Mad Max” brought in, I have the
impression that production value improved a lot for the following movies, but I
cannot confirm that. Somehow, the premise of the movie just does not tempt me
enough to give it a shot.
I totally
get why “Mad Max” is an important movie, but I cannot say that this is a great
movie. It is not even a fun movie to watch unless high speed chases do it for
you. It is in fact a rather sad and depressing movie about the cheapness of
lives and how basic instincts take over when law breaks down. I can see a
coolness factor in some of it, but again, I feel it is a bit off. Those leather-clad
police officers look like they are on the way to a… different kind of party and
the villains, well, it is almost sweet that they remember to wear proper crash
helmets.
On a rather
different note, there is something curious about having a film, indeed a
franchise, about speeding on Australian roads. First thing you notice when you
drive a car there is how slow everybody drives on those very straight and empty
roads. They enforce those speed limits very strictly. A few months after returning
from Australia in ’16 I got a greeting from Victoria Police sent half the way
around the globe for doing 57 km/h where 50 km/h are allowed. I am a road
pirate. Lucky, I did not get shot.
Recommendation?
Not certain, but if you are into the franchise, I suppose this is where you start.