Mad Max (R)
IMDb; MGM; Rotten Tomatoes; TCM; TV Tropes; Wikia; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Vudu; YouTube
Caution: spoilers!
This came out in Australia in 1979 (when I was about three and a half years old), and was released in 1980 in The U.S., redubbed with American slang. I've always wanted to see the movie, but I didn't get around to it until 2019 (forty years after its release). I watched it on DVD, which had the original Australian version. It's the first movie in the "Mad Max" franchise, which as of this time includes four movies, all of which I have in a DVD set. So I'll be getting to the others probably sometime this year. Anyway... before I watched it, I assumed I'd put my review under "dystopian/post-apocalyptic films," but I ended up putting it under "B-movies," instead. Partly that's because it's relatively low-budget, but also because it didn't really seem that apocalyptic to me. Like, the movie is set "a few years from now," at which point the world (or at least Australia) seems to be turning into a post-apocalyptic society, but it's a long slide, not due to some sudden, devastating event. So while things seem somewhat worse than they were before the downward spiral started, it doesn't seem to me like it's quite gotten to a point where I'd be entirely comfortable calling it either dystopian or post-apocalyptic. I do feel, though, that there's a good chance I'll put my reviews of the sequels in that category, whenever I get around to watching them. We'll see.
Anyway, it begins with a car chase. A member of a biker gang who calls himself "Nightrider" has killed a rookie cop of the MFP (Main Force Patrol) and stolen his car, called a "Pursuit Special." Nightrider and his girlfriend are chased by other MFP cops, who fail to catch him. But after Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) joins the pursuit, Nightrider and his girlfriend end up dying in a crash. Shortly after that, Max is considering quitting the MFP, but is enticed to stay when his partner, Goose, shows him a supercharged Pursuit Special that an MFP mechanic has been working on. (I find it odd that Max doesn't start driving that car until much later in the movie.)
Well, the gang that Nightrider belonged to comes to town to seek revenge against Max. Meanwhile, they cause a lot of mayhem for pretty much everyone they come across. The leader of the gang is called Toecutter (a name Nightrider had mentioned a few times during his ranting, the whole time he was leading the MFP on the chase that ended in his death). There are various other names of a few of the bikers that we hear in the course of the film, but I never really learned which names went with which bikers. Anyway, a bunch of stuff happens that I don't want to get into, but eventually the gang kills Goose. (Or... left him as good as dead.) After that, Max once again decides to quit the force, and he and his wife, Jessie, leave town, along with their toddler son, Sprog. But the gang finds them, and eventually manage to kill Jessie and Sprog. After that, Max goes back to the MFP, steals the Pursuit Special, and goes on a rampage to kill the bikers. And then the movie ends, rather suddenly, I thought.
I'm pretty sure no one ever calls Max "Mad Max" in this movie, and in fact I think until the very end, he mostly seemed too chill for such a nickname to make sense, anyway. Other than that... I don't really know what to say. I'm glad to have seen the movie, and I can't say I found anything about it disappointing, but I also didn't think it was particularly good. I mean, not by mainstream movie standards; but it was definitely good for a B-movie. And honestly, I wasn't expecting anything more than that. But I do hope the sequels will be better.