Mad Max
Somebody call Jay Beckham because “a few years from now”
Australia is going to be no fine place to live.
The tone setting opening sequence provides everything we
need to know about this dystopian near future.
Starting with a cop getting his voyeur on through the scope of his
rifle, he’s no less excited to get a call about the Nightrider riding
wild. We get the classic, I’m driving
cop conversation and the alpha male switch of drivers after the failed first
attempt but best of all we get the introduction of our “hero” Max. The tight shots on the aviator glasses, the
dashboard, the exhaust, all of this is basically copied to a T a few years
later by Sly Stallone in Cobra but it makes for a badass entrance.
To me Mad Max is a morality play based on one man’s dive
into the depths of hopelessness. His
friendship with the Goose and relationship with his wife and son maintain Max’s
humanity and as they are stripped away his snaps into vigilante mode. The framing of the shot as he passed the sign
reading “Stop Restricted Area” is a little too on the nose for me as we don’t
need any more to show us what Max has set out to do and become.
I feel like the score was something that was a major plus
for this movie in 1979 but felt very dated.
Each time the panned to the gates to The Halls of Justice and played the
same tune I was transported to watching the Super Friends on Saturday Morning
Cartoons. (Meanwhile at the Legion of
Doom…) I get what they were doing, but I only needed to see the Halls of
Justice sign falling apart and the Halls themselves in ruin once to understand
this was no ordinary police force.
I did wonder during the family vacation how responsible it
was to leave his wife and kid alone so often given that he knew this biker gang
was in the area especially after her first run in with them. Oh well, Aussies are pretty not smart.
I thought the script left something to be desired with a number of areas. First, I like dialogue this movie didn’t have
much. Maybe the dubbing from the busted
Aussie dialect “strine” held that back who knows. Second, we got handsome and crazy Mel Gibson
when everyone knows the best Mel Gibson is, handsome charming and crazy. Hard to be charming without more words.
Disjointed review over, I want to say C but it did make me
want to watch The Road Warrior (which is even better reviewed) so I’ll bump it
into the no man’s land of C+
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ReplyDeleteManaged to get a few notes down on my phone for this one. The opening was terrible. Car engines, nothing going on, and terrible music. The music and car noises continued on a terrible path, but at least the characters developed.
I was incredibly confused through most of this movie - leading to some questions about the directing.
1) They have nice and shiny cars, but the towns look like they're from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. And if a motorcycle is 2 feet behind my bumper and I know they're after me, why not slam the brake?
2) Who populates this Earth? There were maybe 3 women and the only child is no more.
3) How hard is it to learn bad things happen to people who go off by themselves in Australia
4) Who runs down the middle of the road to get away from motorcycles?
Last night I was in B- territory because the story was engaging when it was actually happening, the bad guys were actually bad, and there was no remorse with the violence but it wasn't over the top - the semi, the hand coming off, and the shot to the leg stick out.
However, the music was distractingly bad and a lot of the movie seemed to be nothing going on. I'll go C+ as well.
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Phasellus blandit scelerisque lorem, sit amet pretium turpis mollis at. Mauris tristique purus vel auctor semper. Mauris id ex eget lorem elementum maximus vel eget dui. Aliquam erat volutpat. Nullam et fringilla sapien. Morbi vel ullamcorper felis. Vivamus vehicula felis massa, eget condimentum leo elementum a. Nam scelerisque metus lectus, ut viverra est fermentum vitae. Proin eget ipsum a mi auctor tempus sed et dolor. Vivamus sed massa et tortor vulputate pulvinar vel a dolor. Aliquam posuere hendrerit sapien, vitae imperdiet nunc finibus vitae. Pellentesque mollis arcu lectus, in fringilla ante luctus at.
To be fair, a lot of Australia really is that barren. A couple of years ago, Apple Maps was sending people into the Outback with erroneous directions. I think people were legit almost dying from how remote they ended up. There's a large swath of land like that. Also, bandits still exist in Australia. They have to pay truckers a shit ton of money to make them willing to cross certain parts of the country because of robberies and murders.
DeleteI agree with your slam on the brake comment, though at that speed the motorcycle will fuck up your car and you're stuck fending off against a bunch of even more pissed bikers.
I thought the running in the middle of the road part was goofy as well. They could have done a little better there.
A pissed (most likely concussed) biker on the road in front of you having just had his face full of concrete is better than riding up to you sweetly.
DeleteMy only experience with the Mad Max character is the Simpsons episode in which Mel Gibson guest stars, and the South Park episode in which sex ed class turns into a post-apocalyptic standoff between the girls and Butters in a hockey mask. I know the Road Warrior has a stellar reputation as one of the best action movies of all time, but I knew very little about the movie that preceded it. I ended up being pleasantly surprised by Mad Max, such that I'm absolutely going to check out the Road Warrior and hope that it improves on Mad Max's one or two serious flaws.
ReplyDeleteFor a debut film made on the cheap (1.2 million in today's dollars), George Miller gets a lot of bang for his buck. He's able to cover for his lack of money by filming things in the most interesting way possible. The car chases are all well-done, and have that indescribable quality that makes the viewer lean in a little bit while they're happening, even though the roads are nearly all empty. It's all cuts and angles instead of action, and is just as effective. Also, Max doesn't immediately need to do anything expensively badass because of how he's introduced. He's the cavalry, lying in wait if the front line can't do the job. By withholding a look at him til the last possible moment, he's been built up as much as needed, without really doing anything. The near-iconic shot of him as he first exits his car capitalizes on all the anticipation. The condition of the world is communicated through radio broadcasts and the general barrenness of the landscape, further reducing the need for set dressing and allowing the Australian environment to speak for itself. What money is spent is all onscreen, particularly the visceral auto destruction laid out in the Nightrider chase and kept up throughout.
The script is as straightforward as possible, which in this case, I'd call a strength. Ultra-competent cop gets on the radar of a deadly motorcycle gang, has to take them all out. Add a novel setting, and that's a fine movie. It's black and white, order and chaos, a simplistic contrast made stronger by the size of the characters. There's already Max's slow-burn intro, chasing the cackling, bombastic Nightrider. Hotheaded Goose and stalwart Fifi hold down the struggling police station, trying to keep people safe from the crazed Toecutter and his Nazi sidekick Bubba Zanetti. It already sounds mythic, and with Miller at the helm, it's given the weight these huge characters deserve.
There's a lot of movies like Mad Max, before and after, but it adds nice variations. Motorcycle gangs as villains is something that's always going to work for me, as there's something terrifying about a gang of highly mobile brutes armed with chains and knives, high on crank. I very much enjoyed that Max's wife isn't just a damsel in distress, but shows she can hold her own against Toecutter himself. Max doesn't even rescue her, he just happens to be around while she's escaping. The car culture around the movie has no appeal to me, but I can acknowledge Max's car looks pretty cool. Lastly, "A few years from now" is the appropriate way to title any futuristic film, just so I can avoid the constant Back to the Future II memes that I've already seen way too many of, and it's not even 2015 yet.
I also have to say thank you to Miller for repeatedly cutting away at the right moment. When Max's wife and baby are run down, the shoe tumbling down the road is such a classy, tasteful edit. I also very much appreciated that the two teenagers the gang rides down are not shown being raped, which clearly happened to them both. A grosser, more exploitative director would've made a different choice. I got it without seeing it.
ReplyDeleteIt's all been positive up til now, but holy shit, was that score terrible. It was so far beneath the movie. I was very surprised that it was composed specifically for Mad Max, since it sounded like generic soap opera music. The stings in scenes like Max visiting the roasted Goose in the hospital completely robbed it of its power, turning a fine scene into a bad one. It was musical tell-don't-show, and actively made the movie worse. There's way too many hanging threads, as Goose and Max's wife are still alive at the end of the movie. I've also got to add that naming the baby Sprog was thoroughly distracting, such that the kid was defined by his weird name and not his personhood. I was rooting for a moment when Max yells out Sprog's name, and was rewarded. It was like something out of Tim and Eric. Fucking Australians. They all deserve to be booted because their naming system is dumb, and so is their boot. Though disparaging the boot is a bootable offense, I stand by the previous sentence, and at least one of you better get the joke or I'm leaving the group.
Strong direction, a no-frills or hand-holding script, good performances by Mel and Hugh Keays-Byrne as Toecutter, and a better performance by Joanne Samuel would equal a B+ if not for that score. With the score, we're down to a B-, and I'm adding the Road Warrior to the top of my queue.
This was toe - curling, uncomfortable squirming bad. This film made me think it was Hell's Angels versus the Leather Squad; better yet Judas Priest's song "Hell Bent for Leather" ran through my head while watching this. Just wow.
ReplyDeleteThe opening scene took too long. All of those cops could not catch the Nightrider but by God, Max could do it in three minutes. Max was so effective that he made the Nightrider cry! Amazing!
The gang members acting crazy and doing the most random things is akin to an adolescent experiencing a sugar rush. It is funny and interesting for a moment but then it turns annoying. Their psychosis could have been better directed. It was as if Miller told them "act like you are nuts with reckless abandon." Bah!
What really gripes my ass is how this gang of tough guys get bullied into a room by Granny Clampett. What the hell was that about? "Oh no! A crazy, old woman with a shotgun! Do what she says and maybe she will go away! Oh no, she shot a barrel of gas and it is leaking. Hide!" What a bunch of shit. Also, what happened to the dog? It just ran away.
I had to laugh every time when they showed the "Halls of Justice." Made of think of Justice League and the narrator's voice, "Meanwhile, back at the Halls of Justice. Goose is flipping a coin into a helmet because he can't do anything else." Glad Sean and I are on the same page.
Another aspect that bothered me was how Max was able to take out the Grease Lightning motorcycle club singlehandedly. It was as if he could do it the entire time but did not want to.
I agree with Sean that this film is dated. Too many 1979 - ish aspects that bothered me.
The only positive notion and Mad Max's saving grace is Mel Gibson. He owned every scene he was in and when he went "Wyatt Earp" on the Cloven Hooves, he was sensational. That is the Mel Gibson I enjoy watching and why I enjoy the first Lethal Weapon than the rest.
As you can tell, I did not like this film nor agree with Jon's assessment for high marks.
Grade: D+
P.S. Bryan, I Google translated your Latin phrases and they were funny. Also, good to see you kept with the trend. :)
If you don't think there are old ladies in Australia with shotguns, you're crazy.
DeleteAnd why wouldn't an old lady with a gun intimidate you. She knew how to use it. You'd rather get shot, thought she was bluffing or believed her to be incompetent. That lady would have fucked you up. Sure, the whole gang would have over-whlemed her, but the first to make a move was as dead as Nightrider, donating organs involuntarily.
DeleteShe missed her shot and it was clear she was uncomfortable using it. This was a group of tough guys who had no problem raping people and an old woman with a gun scared them into a room. Completely unrealistic.
DeleteThere may be 20 tough guys but she's getting 1 for sure. They knew they could catch them on that open road that doesn't have turns or exits or curves
DeleteShane and I watched this one together. Blair walked in about 30 minutes into it and asked what it was about. I legitimately could not answer her question. Shane did though, with some mumbo jumbo about the future and running out of things....all things I assume he read in some online description of this fucking weird movie. Maybe I was just too distracted watching this. Or maybe I didn't really care if I understood it. I have no idea. But I know I didn't like it. Oh and the future looks pretty much like the 1970s actually looked. They didn't really go very far to make it look futuristic.
ReplyDeleteI came out of this with just a few thoughts. The first being what the fuck did I just watch. The second being, wow Mel Gibson was actually not bad looking when he was younger. And the third being how the hell did that movie make Mel Gibson famous (see previous statement. His looks apparently).
All in all, I for sure would never watch this again. I'm glad I watched it with Shane because I would NOT have made it through this movie on my own. D+ I suppose...
So what was dated or negative?
ReplyDeleteWell, the score was incredibly annoying. Not only did it not add to the movie, but it muffled a ton of dialogue. I couldn't understand what they were saying at times. I'd turn and look to Ashli for some help, but neither of us knew what happened in some of the scenes. I just kept hearing, "mumble, mumble, mumble, Sprog, mumble, bumble, Chazzwuzzah, mumble, the bronze." Also, the Hall of Justice or whatever was pretty dumb. Even if the future is kind of messed up, why not clean up just a bit? It drives me nuts in The Walking Dead when they've been living somewhere for awhile, but there are papers trash all over the floor. You figure someone would have picked it up for sanitation, safety or aesthetic reasons.
I don't know why, but at some point in the late 70's/early 80's, we decided that really angular looking lanky women were to be coveted. I'm glad that fad passed us. That singer freaked me out. Passing her off as attractive should get you indicted for fraud in Australia.
Again, there were some confusing parts to the plot and the ending came up too quickly. Then again, for how cheaply it was done, it's impressive.
Random Thoughts:
A big positive was the utter lack of Dingo.
Those cars were pretty slick.
"Hey fella, stop! What a turkey. Hey fella, you're a turkey, y'know that?" Love old school, benign insults like that.
Anyway, I walked into this movie expecting winter. I even brought my cheesy 80's action themed sled that had a Manhunter decal on the front that said, "Wouldn't you you son of a bitch!" But it's not winter, it's summer in this movie. So throw away the sled. You have to watch this for what it is: a low budget, slow-burning action movie that is fun if you'd just write a mental check to yourself and release some endorphins.
I can see this being a C/C+ movie, but a D+ is way too low. D's and below are much worse than this. I'm going with a B.
NOIGHTROIDER!!!
""Hey fella, stop! What a turkey. Hey fella, you're a turkey, y'know that?" Love old school, benign insults like that."
DeleteLoved this as well.
"That singer freaked me out. Passing her off as attractive should get you indicted for fraud in Australia. "
I completely disagree here, but not based on her looks. Based on it being a barren world without much to choose from. And to each his own, I don't think the singer was pushed to the audience more than being a woman who can kinda sing.
I totally forgot to mention the Saw like torture thing at the end. Just read something about Mad Max being the inspiration to the creators of Saw. So that's either a plus or a negative depending on whether you like the series or not.
DeleteI want to write about Max Max even less than I wanted to finish it.
ReplyDeleteI'm half way through it, so I'll just write the reveiw as I watch in an attempt to enjoy it more.
It felt slow and dragged on for me. The score was atrocious, distracting and just in the way. I wasn't at all taken by the plot, and didn't care about anything that was going on. The scenes in buildings didn't at all feel like it was post-apolcalytic. That leather jacket didn't look rough at all, let alone enough to strike a match. The whole effects thing when Max was just about to pull the sheet back in the hospital.. horrible. The kid talked you into buying him an ice cream, eh? Did the kid say a single word in this movie.. or did you just want some ice cream? Which is fine, just say you want some ice cream! Where was that rifle kept while the kid was sat riding in the back? Not that it matters, you forgot lil Sprog anyway!Why are you running down the road... motorcycles can't go through all that tall grass! Did they hit Max's wife with something, the surely didn't run her over, because that would flip the bike, right? Am I supposed to hear what the doctor is saying? Guess not. She'll just stay mostly dead like Goose, I guess.
So finally... there seems to be a reason for Max to care! He is gonna revenge... with 15 minutes left, so let's clean up this mess quickly, please. But what the hell was that pan shot to nothing of interest while he's questioning the mechanic? What was the point of that large load truck being in the way for an entire 15 seconds supposed to do for me? Fuck knees, who needs them.. I'm full of rage and adrenaline! Did his eyes just pop out... before he was even hit? Was the previous semi supposed to forshadow a completely different semi being in the way? That pickup truck looks like it's been there a while... how is gas still leaking from it? BOOM!? That's it? Did the guys who rode into the water die... doubtful, but at least Max gave Johnny some kind of Jigsaw's chance at hell of living!
I did enjoy the initial chase, and it was easy to see Mel Gibson was pretty good at this whole acting thing. Vince Gil and Joane Samuel were great. Some of the action scenes were well done and shot, although some cuts and transitions weren't too well done. I get that it was a low budget film... but You don't get bonus points for that. I get the appeal of this movie and can see how it did so well for it's time... but it just doesn't hold up for me. I'll be generous and go D+... My mental check must have bounced.
Late to the party on this one, and I don’t particularly want to dwell on a movie that I didn’t find particularly good, so let’s hit the highlights.
ReplyDeleteThe simple plot as Kissel laid it out was fine. Good cop, bad biker gang, biker gang kills good cop’s family and partner, good cop kills biker gang, the end. I’m in for that. I enjoyed the opening sequence, even if I didn’t totally understand why 72 cops were after Nightrider. It sets up Mad Max for how good he is at this job, but it probably went on a tad too long. I also enjoyed parts of the end sequence where Max takes out all the bikers. Kissel mentioned it already, so I’ll just reiterate about the directing. Miller does do a really good job nailing all these shots, and considering the budget, there was probably only one take. Well done with a high degree of difficulty. Gibson does a great job selling the injuries, and he’s already showing his chops as an actor here.
However, for a movie with a run time of 93 minutes including the credits, there’s an absurd amount of wasted time. We spend an inordinate amount of time with Toecutter’s gang, who are some of the least interesting villains I’ve ever seen. Why not spend this time world-building to help explain their insanity? Or focusing on other relationships? Or doing literally anything else? I pretty much figured out the gang about two minutes in to their sequence, and then I get another 20 minutes with them. No thank you. This was the exact opposite of Butch Cassidy, which didn’t focus on the antagonists one bit. I liked that idea in Butch Cassidy, and Mad Max only reinforces that opinion.
Just to agree with everyone else, yes, the score was distracting and horrendous. Moving on.
I like that most of us said we’re curious about the next movie in the series and how this one feels dated. I feel like those sentiments both come from the same place. That place is the place of the dreaded “wasted potential.” There are good ideas, but the execution is not great. My initial thought the second the credits started rolling was “wow, I’m really glad this is being remade next year.”
+ Lot of good ideas
+ Mel Gibson is solid
+ Very well-directed
- Villains are wildly boring
- We spend an absurd amount of time with said villains
- That score…
Grade: C
I've read that the remake will have almost zero dialogue. So there's that. But the same director has a big budget this time.
DeleteIt doesn't really need dialogue anyway... I think that'll be more interesting.
DeleteWell, as long as "NOIGHTROIDER!!!!!!!!!" is in there. That should be the only word of dialogue.
DeleteI thougth I replied to this... but I though the new Mad Max is #4, not a remake at all.
Delete