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+
