Mad Max - Cheap Thoughts

I had never seen a single Mad Max movie before a few days ago, the reason why i've chosen to watch them now is because there's a new Mad Max movie coming out this year that looks incredible, so i wanted to watch the original films first, and i have done that with the first one and shall watch the other two soon. Mad Max is an Australian dystopian film directed by George Miller and starring Mel Gibson in his breakthrough role as the titular character. The film is set in the Outback of Australia on the brink of an apocalypse after a major energy crises and crime runs rampid, and Max is a police officer who after accidently killing a member of a gang, is now being hunted by the rest of that gang who will get at him through his friends & family for revenge.

*Massive Spoilers Ahead*

Now there are certain liberties that you have to take with this film, it's a low budget dystopian Australian film from the 1970's, so don't expect any big action set pieces here, but even then, this film is highly dispointing from a production stand point. Let me start out with my biggest problem with the production design of this film, it doesn't look even remotely dystopian. A lot of the film takes place in the Outback but that doesn't instantly make it look dystopian because that's how it would look anyway, and whenever they do enter civilization, everything seems perfectly fine, apart from a shortage on police officers and everyone having a large obsession with leather, i would have no idea that this was supposed to be a dystopian future. Especially considering the main issue would be a major energy crisis which means low fuel reserves yet everyone drives around everywhere, some crisis, if supplies were low then you probably shouldn't be driving so many places and wasting supplies.

Then there is the story, which is highly generic and not even remotely fascinating, Max is a police officer with a best friend/partner named Goose...and big surprise, he's killed off. And then the movie almost shifts tones completely after that, Max is encouraged by his superior to go away for a while and decides to take his family on vacation, despite the fact that he's fully aware there is a biker gang trying to hunt them down, and they go to this farm house where the owners know them somehow, but there is no development there, i have no idea who these people are or how they know Max and his family. Though I will say, the fact that Max's wife and son (Named Sprog...what the fuck) are killed off, i found kind of surprising, mostly because, though it was offscreen, it was very brutal, especially the fact that they killed a baby, i didnt expect it.

But this also leads to another problem I have and that would be Max himself, he has so little dialogue and doesn't really do much police work that I have no idea who his character is supposed to be, so at the end of the movie when he hunts down the gang members for revenge and we're supposed to feel like this man has been broken and is now a fragmant of who he was...i have no idea who he was though! He got along with his family, that's about it. I have no idea who Max is as a character so i don't feel anything for him at the end of the movie, because i can't tell how he's changed at this point.

But the film isn't terrible, the acting i felt was good, the gangsters were comically over the top and because Gibson's portrayal was mostly quiet and subtle, when he did express emotion, it felt a lot more effective because of the contrast of the rest of his performance. And despite the low budget and conditions of filming, it was still a well shot movie, especially the chase scenes and they were honestly the most exciting moments of the film for me. Also Gibson looks damn good in leather (Though i can't imagine it could have been that comfortable considering how hot it is).

Also oddly enough, the film has an American dub and is automatically set to play that version despite the fact the original version is still in English, i mean yes there are a fair number of Aussie slang terms in the film, but i doubt your audience would be so ignorant to not understand what the hell they're saying. So watch the original Australian version because the dubbing can be quite obvious at times when the lips don't match up with what they're saying. Also another annoyance is that they only have English subtitles for the American dub and not the original, and i find that rather irritating.

In the end, Mad Max is a very cliched movie, that does have some good moments sprinkled inbetween but the production design is it's biggest betrayal at trying to get me invested. I'm giving Mad Max a 4/10.

-Danny