Justin does Mad Max

“I’m a fuel injected suicide machine!”

The Scoop: 1979 R, directed by George Miller and starring Mel Gibson, Steve Bisley and Hugh Keays-Byrne

Tagline: The Maximum Force of the Future.

Summary Capsule: Biker gangs terrorize the outback, and Mel begins a long line of payback films

Justin’s Rating: A dingo ate my baby, you say?

NAME’s Review: I don’t think I’d ever want to be saddled with the responsibility of running a biker gang. While motorcycles do seem like a fuel-efficient trend in these pricey times, they’re also insanely dangerous (there’s a reason why – and this is true – medical professionals call them “donorcycles”). Not to mention that continually motivating big, burly, overly psychotic men under the influence of PCP takes more than an afternoon of “Hey guys, let’s play capture the flag!” No, you always have to be taking them on rampages and more rampages, which sound fun at first but quickly become exhausting. There’s only so much loot you can carry on the back of a hog, blood stains don’t wash out, and bugs keep getting stuck in your teeth as you chase down the innocent for a mercy deathblow.

Not to mention that sooner or later, you’re going to end up ticking off the one guy who has the power to kill you all in a revenge montage. And you just never know who that guy might be. Will he be the mild-mannered grocery store clerk? The florist? The well-armed police officer with a souped-up sedan and a vendetta straight from the bowels of hell? Why, it could be ANY of these guys!

I’m not sure what I was expecting with Mad Max, other than its pop culture footprint – an Australian post-apocalyptic road rage sort of deal. So imagine my slight disappointment when I found out that the low budget first entry in this series wasn’t post-apocalyptic at all, but just minorly dystopic, and it takes well over half the film for Mel Gibson to get worked up into his now-standard Revenge Mode™ . I mean, apart from the occasional murderous biker gang in the outskirts of Australia, it looks like these people are pretty hunky dory with their lives – they even have vacation beach houses and the like!

Max (Gibson) is a member of the unfortunately-titled Main Force Patrol, which consists of five police officers, three cars, and 10,000 square miles of Outback to cover. Instead of keeping his head down and counting out the days until he can retire on his kangaroo farm, Max prods and pokes the local biker gang – led by the charming Toecutter – until they slaughter his family and it’s all “ohhh whyyyy god? don’t dieeeeee on me!” and then comes the revenge, soaring down the road at 85 mph.

Nowadays, it’s a pretty standard template for these kinds of action movies. Give the hero enough justifiable reason to eschew the law and become a torturous vigilante, and he shall do so, and we shall cheer him on. Back then, maybe it was kind of new or something, but what Mad Max is probably best-known for is its fairly graphic violence. People are burned alive, run over, squashed, shot, impaled and tickled. In fact, this may be the only movie in the world which was inspired by an ER doctor who saw first-hand all of the gruesome injuries that car accidents caused, and went “Hey, let’s make a movie to capitalize on all this gore!”

Which is a good reason as any, I guess.

Hot cops and their hot wheels

Mel Gibson didn’t go to the audition for this film to read for a part, he actually went along with a friend who was auditioning. But because he had been in a bar fight the night before and his head looked like “a black and blue pumpkin” (his words), he was told he could come back and audition in three week’s time because “we need freaks!”. He did return in three weeks’ time, wasn’t recognized (because his injuries had healed well), and was asked to read for a part.

Because he was relatively unknown in the US, trailers and previews did not feature Mel Gibson, instead focusing on the car crashes and action scenes.

Tim Burns (Johnny the Boy) was so into character that he annoyed everyone on set, and was abandoned one day during lunch while handcuffed to the wreck.

Groovy Quotes

Fifi: They say people don’t believe in heroes anymore. Well damn them! You and me, Max, we’re gonna give them back their heroes!

Max: The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It’d take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you’re lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go.

Nightrider: I am the Nightrider. I’m a fuel injected suicide machine. I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller!

If You Liked This Movie, Try These:

• The Road Warrior

• Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome