Mad Max

Mad Max and its sequels, Mad Max 2 (released in the US as The Road Warrior) and Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, were Mel Gibon's entre into the consciousness of film-goers. He cemented his action-adventure hero status with the Lethal Weapon series in the 'eighties, while branching out into romantic lead with such titles as Mrs. Soffel and The Year of Living Dangerously.

This film was also was the debut of Producer/Director George Miller, who went on to create the Witches of Eastwick and the talking pig Babe.

Future Dystopic

Mad Max is set in an unspecified 'near future' just as civilization is breaking down. (Further episodes investigate this breakdown in more detail.) Mel Gibson plays Max, an Australian cop trying to keep order on the highways of the outback in Australia. Pitted against him are the increasingly lawless motorcycle gangs, made up of pitiless thugs and outlaws.

When Max causes the death of one gang-leader's henchman, the gang responses by killing Max's partner, leading Max to quit the force to protect his wife and son. Alas, too little, too late, and the gang locates and kills his family as well. The rest of the movie is a lavish recitation of Max's search for revenge.

This movie is perhaps one of the first in which the vehicles are almost characters themselves.

George Miller, MD

Writer-director George Miller had a peculiar, yet appropriate, background for creating the character and events in this movie. He was a medical doctor who was often in the emergency room, treating the kinds of road accidents that he recreates so vividly on film. Because he felt the violence, which he saw so often, would be unbelievable in a present-day setting, he chose to set the action in a near-future.

Life Imitates Art?

During the US involvement in the ongoing conflict in Somalia, the world became aware of the young troops who rode around in pickups and jeeps fitted with machine guns. These troops were often teenage or younger, and the vehicles were dubbed 'technicals'; the sight of armed teens roving the countryside in weapon-bedecked vehicles was often referred to as 'Mad Maxian', or 'just like in Mad Max'.

Mad Max in America

The first movie was only briefly released in America - it was Road Warrior, or Mad Max 2, that really launched the series in the US. But in what remains an inexplicable move, the voices were all redubbed using American actors. Perhaps the distributor thought the accent would be incomprehensible to American audiences? or that the 'unfamiliar' sound just wouldn't play well to American listeners? Worse, the actors doing the dubbing... well, they can't act.

Whatever the case, most US versions of the original Max movie have the awful dubbing, which totally clashes with the outback venue and is one of those horrible movie-making decisions that leaves you shaking your head and wondering, 'what were they thinking?'

Fortunately, succeeding Mad Max movies were released in the US with their soundtrack intact.