“They say people don't believe in heroes anymore. Well, damn them! You and me, Max, we're gonna give 'em back their heroes! ”
So I finished the Mad Max trilogy, as i'd seen them countless times I watched them out of sequence hence the reason these reviews are out of order, but you could say I left the best till last. Well the nightrider called and told me I had to watch this one, he said you can't watch 2 and 3 and leave 1 out of the equation, I agreed and put it on.
Mad Max 1 is unlike the sequels. It's not set in a post apocalyptic future but more a future that is on the verge of social and econimical downfall. There are still cities, towns and there is still a justice system, albeit corrupt, but it still exists. Max is part of this, he is a Road cop, patroling the highways in his yellow police intercepter. This time around though, max isn't as mad as were supposed to believe. He has friends, a family, and a normal sort of existance. There are obvious signs of this being set in a dwindling civilization, population is scarce, sure there are people but not many, towns are almost empty and the roads almost clear from traffic.
The film starts with one of the craziest car chases ever comitted to film, lots of engines roaring down the road at insane speeds, followed by some brilliant camera work, as The MFP (Main Force Patrol) chase down The Nightrider in a stolen interceptor causing all manor of destruction along the way. After two of the cops are taken out of action it's up to cool as ice Max Rockatansky to stop them by playing Chicken on the highway, causing the Nightrider to flip the vehicle which then exploads.
Hearing of the death of one of their members, a gang of bikers descend on the town where max live to take revenge for the death of the Nightrider.
At the Halls of justice Max is shown a car that a mechanic has been working on, It's the iconic last of the V8's.
Things go from bad to worse and after loosing his best friend the 'goose' at the hands of the biker gang, Max wants to quite but his superior tells hime to take some time off, and see how he feels when he comes back. Max is tracked by the bike gang and his family are mowed down causing Max to become mad, he straps on the leathers, grabs his Double barreled sawn of shotgun and hops in the Last of The V8s to seek bloody revenge.
Mad Max is, like I stated, very different to the sequels, instead of the arrid desert landscapes of the sequels, the surroundings here are mostley green fields and farm land. Of course we still have the two lane blacktops, which i've not mentioned in previous reviews for this trilogy, but the roads are almost used as a weapon, cars are flipped, tires skid and motorbikes tare it up. Max is a normal happy family guy but finds the job is getting to him before the events that take place. There is a line in the film that sums this up.
“I'm scared, Fif. It's that rat circus out there, I'm beginning to enjoy it. Look, any longer out on that road and I'm one of them, a terminal psychotic, except that I've got this bronze badge that says that I'm one of the good guys.”
What happens to Max is brutal but not as brutal as what happens to Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence, but the two films do follow a similar theme, Revenge. Where as Death Sentence follows the descent into vengeance from pretty much 20 minutes in, Max doesn't descend into the revenge machine until the last 25 minutes, it's there, but it doesn't rear it's head until almost the finale, this is a good thing because the rest of the movie sets up a great back story and gives Max some characterization, im not saying that Death Sentence is bad for not doing this because it does, and it's an awesome film, but Mad Max gives us a glimps of what it's like to find everything around you crumbling much like the social and econimical crisis that is happening in the film. While society dies so does the humanity in Max causing him to become Mad Max.
You could even say that what is happening in Mad Max is happening today, we have an econimical crisis, we have a rise in crime and the police are being harder on criminals, there are also countless Television shows that show the audience high speed car chases. But hopefully we won't succome to the apocalyptic vision of the sequels.
Obviously it's well known that this was where Mel Gibson's career started and he's great as Max and all the way through the sequels and even from the opening scenes, he has this air of badassery about him, fixing up his car, the gunbelt, never seeing his face, showing only his eyes as he puts on a pair or aviator sunglasses. Just monumentally cool. And he continued this through his career. I've already talked in previous reviews for the Mad Max sequels about his other films but I do want to touch up on one that I didn't mention and one that I did. The first being Ransom, again Mel's family have to face a difficult time when his son is kidnapped and we see Mel transform into this man intent on getting his son back at any cost and as Porter in Payback as straight up revenge movie about a man wronged and left for dead who comes back to take back what was stolen from him and take revenge against the people who left him with a large amount of bullets in his back. Whether Mel looked back at his performance in Mad Max for inspiration in for these characters I don't know, but revenge does seem to be a sort of theme that runs through his movies, not all but some, even his last film, Edge Of Darkness is a revenge film, and Mel does revenge well.
The rest of the cast is made up of unknowns except Steve Bisely who was in the recent Aussie western Red Hill and Roger Ward, well known to fans of Ozsploitation flick Turkey Shoot.
George Miller's First film, funded by Miller working as a Hospital E.R doctor is a triumph of action cinema filmmaking, The contol he has over the film is fantastic and he's aided incredibly well by DOP Dean Semler for the first time, who really does know how to shoot action the right way. The screenplay is also spot on, written by Miller, Byron Kennedy and James McCausland it really does give us a strange almost anarchic vision of what still may come.
Thankfully the music is provided by Brian May (not of Queen and Curly Hair) and much like his brilliant score for The Road Warrior, really adds to the action and fits really well, it even has a kind of nod to Dragnet when ever they show the halls of Justice. Again I keep saying this but a movie really does need music to convey certain themes, feelings and actions and this does it very well. I have noticed however that Miller likes his saxaphones as we have a scene where Max' Wife Jessie plays a jazz piece at the beginning. This scene is much like the scene with Sax man in Thunderdome.
What's My Final Verdcit?
Anyone who has only seen the second and third and are looking for a full on Adrenaline fueld action extravaganza will be sorely dissapointed because there is a lot more story and characterization going on in this one which sets up the sequel brilliantly. We also find out why Max has to wear a leg brace in MM2 and where he gets his awesome car from. But this is superior action movie making and one of the best action films ever made in my opinion.
As Mr. Osmond states, the world of Mad Max is creepily depopulated. Probably the result of the budget, it lends the film an unsettling quality. Only Max's homelife and his sojourn with his wife, Jesse, and son, Sprog, seem vaguley normal. Everything else seems to be in decay. A world of car chases and chaos where ambulances and tow-trucks prosper like vultures.
ReplyDeleteWhen Max and Jesse take a vacation in the middle act, the desolate highways and dusty towns are swept away by a lush bucolic setting. It may sound corny, but by the time these scenes come around, you're relieved to be far from the mayhem. There's a tranquility that leaves us wondering if the world really is all bad.
Of course, this is a revenge film and happiness is short lived.
The couple go to a farm belonging to an old woman and her disabled son. And it's here that Mad Max delivers what is perhaps it's best setpiece.
In the scene, Jesse visits a nearby beach. Max is unable to go as he's repairing their van. Jesse ventures out with the dog, walking along a woodland trail. Here that we get the first inklings that something's wrong. A flash of what might be movement. An image only momentarily in focus that could be a person hiding.
At the beach, Jesse swims, sunbathes and falls asleep, oblivious to the fact that she being watched. Waking to find the dog gone, she heads back through the woods. As she walks, strange, animalistic noises erupt from the woodland quiet. The woods suddenly alive, figures all too familiar darting between the trees. Jesse runs and collides with something and screams as she falls to the ground, only to look up at the gutted remains of the dog hanging from a tree.
Hysterical, she makes it back to the house. Unable to get any sense from her Max grabs a shotgun and heads for the woods. The farmowner comforts Jesse and goes to call the police. The tension seems to dissipate. That is until Jesse realises that she doesn't know where the baby is.
Moments later, she finds Sprog being held by the bikers. The child is unharmed, however, the biker who holds him in one hand, holds a hatchet in the other. The farmowner appears with a gun and is able to lock the bikers in a barn while she, Jesse and the baby get away in the van. Of course, those that have been paying attention will recall that Max was repairing the van, which dies just a few miles down the road. By now the bikers have escaped. The farmowner tells Jesse to take the bay and run while she tries to hold them back. But her attempt fails and the gang mow down Jesse and the child.
And then we get the revenge.
As Mr. Osmond has said, this is quite brief, but it raises troubling issues that lead us to realise how damaged and empty Max has become.
At the hospital, after Jesse and Sprog are run over, we learn the baby was DOA, but Jesse, despite massive injuries, can be saved. But it's the last we hear of her. And it's here that the film becomes tragic. Max seems unable to accept the idea of Jesse being anything other than whole. He cannot deal with the reality of what has taken place. Any chance of normality is gone. All that remains is violent retribution.
Towards the end of the film, we briefly see that Max has a small picture of Jesse and Sprog on his steering wheel. Again, this seems to suggest that Max is so fixated on his past that he is blind to everything else, including the fact that he has left Jesse, presumably paralysed and in need of constant care, to grieve alone for their child.
Max's revenge ends with his capture of Johnny the Boy, the last of the bikers to have survived. Chaining Johnny to the axle of an overturned truck, Max rigs the vehicle to explode. He then gives Johnny a hacksaw and tells him that he might be able to hack off his own foot and get away.
Of course, Johnny doesn't make it.
The final image finds us racing along the two lane blacktop at high speed. It stretches out towards the horizon. Towards nothing.