Viking Night: Mad Max
By Bruce Hall
August 2, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com
“I am the Nightrider! I am the chosen one. The mighty hand of vengeance, sent down to strike the unroadworthy!”
Coming from anyone else I’d have been a little worried, and I might even have called the state police. But this is actually one of the least bizarre messages I’ve ever received from Quentin, and moments later he followed up with:
“Come on, what movie?”
Are you kidding me? I know that quote. It’s from a film I hadn’t seen in a long time, but one more than worthy of inclusion into the annals of Viking Night and long overdue for it. It is a legendary, groundbreaking harbinger of the post-apocalyptic genre. And it was the first starring role for a then unknown actor named Mel Gibson. Sadly, Gibson would quickly fade into obscurity and never accomplish anything or make any significant headway of any kind into movies ever again. But at least his work lives on. Mad Max and the franchise it spawned would go on to become a cultural phenomenon and would itself influence countless other films. Its importance to cinema really cannot be overstated. I can’t exactly say the same for Quentin. But if you’re out there my friend, whatever you’re doing, and whoever you’re doing it to - thanks for the idea.
In the beginning at least, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) was not quite the man I just described. He was a family man with a large automobile, a beautiful house, a beautiful wife (Joanne Samuel) and a cute, chubby little kid. And she was not just a beautiful wife; she was a wife so witty, so clever, so creative and charming that the only place she could possibly exist is in a movie. And the kid was really just a plot contrivance, there for the occasional gratuitous “cute baby shot”. The three of them live just a stone’s throw from the beach somewhere on the coast of Australia. They sleep late on the weekends and eat lots of peanut butter and honey. They’re young, fit and free of any obvious physical defects. It’s a pretty good life, and with that much to live for you wouldn’t think a guy like Max would be as insanely reckless as he is.
But he is. The film opens with what really is one of the greatest car chases ever filmed. A psychotic biker called Nightrider escapes the police’s Main Pursuit Force in one of their own souped up cars, taking out several officers in the process. Max is called in to help and ends the chase by running the maniac off the road, challenging him to a high speed game of chicken. Realizing he’s about to be rolled by someone even crazier than himself, Nightrider loses his nerve and ends his joyride in a fiery ball of molten death. It’s all in a day’s work, and Max is the biggest stud on a force filled with guys who live fast and die hard. This is Max’s world and he exists here with his family, his job and his best friend/partner, Jim Goose (Steve Bisley).
There’s just one problem. Australia’s interior is a hostile place, veined with lots of arid, open road. For reasons the movie does not specify, society has begun to break down, and law and order seems a little hard to come by. Freaks like Nightrider terrorize the highway; their only purpose being to welcome the coming apocalypse with open arms. They’re led by a terrifying lunatic named Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who is a master at convincing people to do things just by staring at them. Nightrider was kind of a big deal in the psycho killer world, and Toecutter decides to avenge his crazy friend’s death by going after the cops who took him down. Just because he’s insane doesn’t mean he isn’t resourceful, and it doesn’t take long to come up with some names.
They start with Goose, sabotaging his motorcycle and burning him alive in a scene guaranteed to cure you of any desire to play with matches. After Goose’s death, Max predictably tries to quit the force and the film spends a welcome moment poking fun at the cliché. But then, rather than trivialize Max’s grief as the usual case of tough guy nerves, we see that Max is fully aware of what he’s about to become. Nightrider was right to be scared - deep down inside, officer Rockatansky is the most dangerous thing on the road; a cop whose job is starting to get into his head. Max can sense it, and he wants to get out before he loses it completely. Before you tell me you’ve seen the same story in about a dozen Westerns I want you to stop, and just pat yourself on the back now.
Remember earlier when I said that a guy with so much to live for shouldn’t be so nutty? Mad Max is hardly the first film to feature such an obvious anti-hero, but it’s one of the few that is decent enough not to ask you to take it at face value. If you haven’t already guessed, this is not a film about the future. It’s a Western, the kind where they take everything away from a guy and push him too far until he snaps and takes justice into his own hands. The cowboys have been replaced with cops, the horses with crotch rockets and V-sleds, and the American Frontier with the Australian Outback. It’s not so much the story but the dystopian setting, cross pollinated with Aussie road culture that single handily redefined the already well worn “post apocalypse” genre.
It’s ingenious, but not without shortcomings. The second act is weighed down by Max and Jessie’s love story and it comes dangerously close to Redford-Streisand territory. There are a lot of gauzy hand-holding montages, long walks on the beach and sappy orchestral swells. Don’t get me wrong, I think we definitely needed to go there in order to dramatically justify some of the things Max does later in the film. It’s just that a couple of times you’re pretty sure someone’s about to break out in song and it feels a little awkward. It’s okay, it’s just a little long winded. Think of it like a slightly overcooked steak - it’s still a steak, and steak is good. But it’s a little tough to swallow.
Aside from that, apply the same caveats you would to any R rated motorcycle revenge flick. Mad Max is a brutal ride, and at times the large quantity of violent tragedy and black humor start to make it feel a bit like a horror flick. But you have to credit George Miller for showing restraint and creativity with his directorial magnum opus. The worst bloodshed is kept off screen; as certain scenes build momentum it’s already pretty obvious what’s about to happen. When it does, you want to shake your fist at the screen until you realize the only place you actually saw it was in your head, and there’s nobody to blame for the chills running up your spine but yourself. So if you can’t handle a good scare - or a bad one - I’m warning you now. These are not nice people. They do not live in a nice place. Nice things are not going to happen to them.
But if this kind of stuff was too much for you to handle, you’d be reading US Weekly instead of this. Don’t let the endless parade of imitators (or that thing they did with Tina Turner) put you off. Mad Max is well worth your time, especially if you haven’t seen it already. It’s a game changer, and part of the reason is that Mel Gibson guy I was telling you about. The movie is a star vehicle (no pun) and regardless of how you feel about him, he’s a rare talent who easily rises to the challenge. The whole film is pretty well cast, but Gibson was going to be a star one way or another. With a lesser actor in the lead, nobody further west of New South Wales would ever have heard of Mad Max. When I think of Mel Gibson I try to think of the phenomenal actor he once was, and not so much the train wreck we see in the tabloids today.
He might be gone now, but like Toecutter would say...like Quentin would say...just think of him when you look up at the night sky.