The desperate world isn’t brought to life as vibrantly here, with Miller and company clearly stretching to make remote but relatively normal-looking Australian locales seem otherworldly. However, the lower budget means the film is not quite as visually striking as its successors, especially in regard to the scenery. “Mad Max” cost somewhere between $350,000 and $400,000 but grossed around $100 million. The film was able to spawn a franchise in the first place because of how disproportionately successful it was in comparison to its minuscule budget. Overall, “Mad Max” doesn’t have the same razor-sharp focus as the second or fourth films, but its central character arc is executed quite well. The proceeding films find Max repeatedly wracked with guilt and unsure if he’s even human anymore, and here we see him lose his humanity for the first time as the escalating tragedies he faces force him to give in to his darker instincts in order to defeat Toecutter. Gibson does some of his best work in Max’s quieter moments of self-reflection, bringing a level of vulnerability to the part that, by necessity, he could only rarely show in “The Road Warrior” and “Beyond Thunderdome.” This moral self-doubt is also what ties the first film thematically to its sequels. Max also worries about the effects the brutal job is having on his soul.
Max and Goose fume as the very laws they are trying to protect prevent them from taking down Toecutter and ensuring the public’s safety. While the later films all heavily feature themes of survival and what it takes to achieve that, the original is much more of a standard vigilante story. Max and fellow officers, including partner Goose (Steve Bisley), get involved in an increasingly violent feud with one gang led by Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne) until tragedy repeatedly strikes, forcing Max to hunt the gang members down on his own. Gibson’s title character, Max Rockatansky, is a cop on the Main Force Patrol, a police force trying to protect Australian highways from roving gangs of bandits.
“Mad Max” takes place in a dystopian future Australia, though one that isn’t as far gone as the post-apocalyptic landscapes seen in the later films. “Mad Max” is a much quieter, more meditative film than its successors, and while the director and co-writer George Miller’s storytelling prowess would be more fully displayed in “The Road Warrior” and “Fury Road,” the original is still an engaging film well worth watching, thanks to its pulse-pounding set pieces and a powerful performance from a pre-stardom (and pre-controversy) Mel Gibson. Before delivering one of the most visually striking films of the 21st century with “Mad Max: Fury Road,” the “Mad Max” franchise began over 40 years ago with a low-budget dystopian action thriller.
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