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In a world that seems to be obsessed with tuned vehicles of all sorts, be it cars or motorbikes, it's up to the highway patrol to keep things in check and stop speeders and marauders - but they're often outgunned by the outlaws, and it takes men with an overflow of courage to keep things in check, men like Max (Mel Gibson), the toughest of the tough, who even manages to drive notorious psycho speed junkie the Nightrider (Vincent Gil) into a deadly crash, after a protracted chase that crashed several police cars. Thing is, the Nightrider has been part of Toecutter's (Hugh Keays-Byrne) biker gang, and they come to avenge him, wrecking everything in their way in the process. And in one such wrecks, they forget Johnny the Boy (Tim Burns), whom Max and his partner Goose (Steve Bisley) apprehend. It should be their key witness against Toecutter, but they have to let him go, upon which Goose physically attacks Johnny and has to be restrained. Johnny doesn't take lightly to this, and he sabotages Goose's bike, and when that doesn't even bruise Goose, he sees to it that the tow truck Goose uses to bring his bike back to the repair shop has a terrible accident, then burns the wreck with Goose inside, almost killing him.

Seeing his partner all burned and on the brink of dying, Max quits his job with the force and take a long and peaceful trip with his wife Jessie (Joanne Samuel) and son in order to forget everything that happens. But Toecutter and gang eventually track him down, attack Max and family, and in the chase that ensues, they kill the boy and gravely injur Jessie. So Max dons his uniform once more, grabs a sawed-off shotgun, steals a supercharged pursuit car from the patrol's garage, and goes after the gang, driving them into lethal accidents one by one - and even being shot in the leg and his one arm being run over by a car won't stop him ...

Mad Max is of course macho cinema in its purest form, it's about cars and motorbikes and weapons, about speed and explosions, about being tough, with a story that borders the archaic and an imagery with even homo-erotic undercurrents. But thanks to director George Miller, it's also a rather awesome movie, as he isn't glossing over things, he shows the dirt, the bump and grind of the world he has created, the ugliness, the blood. He doesn't make Max a hero but a broken man, the stunts are not only greatly staged but also brutal, and the injuries inflicted upon the characters are almost palpable. On top of that, one also can't but love the B-movie spirit of this movie that really cuts down plot elements to their bare bones, even refuses to give elaborate background info to what's happening but concentrates on the basic story and lots of action.

A deserved classic for sure!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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