This MFM feature is getting dominated more and more by genre fare, but I’ve always been a sucker for the delights of genre, all the way back to reading my first Tarzan book in elementary school. Yes, if you want to get fancy, you can try to build a narrative from the ground up without nestling your plot within the comforting devices of an established genre, but who wants to risk watching something where half the story beats might not even be to your liking? With genre, you know you are in good hands from the beginning. Don’t like grey morality and nasty townfolk? Stick to Westerns prior to 1950. Do you prefer an overwhelming atmosphere of cynicism and nihilism in your gangster movies? Stick with mid-century French films. Do you like your post-apocalyptic films to feature dudes in bondage gear wrecking dozens of ridiculous cars? I guess you’ll want to mostly just watch the Mad Max movies.
I’m [partly] being facetious here, the Mad Max films are not JUST bondage gear and car wrecks. Also, Road Warrior is really the only great one of the early films–the bowl of porridge that was just right (the self-titled first was a bit too low-budget and nasty, while Thunderdome was just too unfocused and lost its way). Road Warrior abandons the revenge plot of the first (which, again, is not my favorite genre–just a bit too nasty for my tastes) and shifts to a “reluctant antihero finds his heart of gold to help the beleaguered townsfolk out of a spot of trouble” that is much more down my road.
Not to say Road Warrior isn’t a nasty bit of business itself. The usual post-apocalyptic wasteland full of dismemberment, torture, murder, and rape shows up here too, but none of it feels overly gratuitous (relatively speaking). And, the pack of savages surrounding the innocent village kind of need to be over the top evil to pluck good old Max’s last remaining heartstring.
Add in a pre-publicly-racist Mel Gibson at his hott-est, a goofy whirlybird pilot, and a feral child who might kind of look like my daughter when she hasn’t brushed her hair and you’ve got an almost quaint little post-apocalyptic wasteland of whacky characters without even getting to Lord Humongous and his assless chap wearing enforcer.
The setting really does feel miserable (or maybe that’s just what 90% of Australia is already like)–nothing but blistering sun and desolate rock formations on all sides. So when the vehicular chaos of the third act finally roars out the gates, it feels even more immediate and visceral. It is only these ridiculous vehicles locked in a bizarre battle dance, with no other living thing visible as shredded metal and stuntmen fly across the screen with increasing urgency.
In short, this is a laser-focused film that nails the atmosphere while also containing some of the greatest car chase scenes ever committed to celluloid. And, thankfully, the “post-apocalyptic wasteland” and “reluctant antihero makes good” frameworks are right there to guide me directly into the film without having to fuss with anything more cerebral than it needs to be. After all, I’m here for the assless chaps and exploding cars, let’s not try to get fancier than we need.
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