We here at Cine-Men are proud to announce we are finally talking about a good movie in over a month. We are talking about a movie that started a franchise, and arguably a whole genre. We are talking about the post-apocalyptic gasoline injected world of Mad Max.

As said above, Mad Max tells the story of Max Rockatansky (played by Mel Gibson), a good cop doing his part to help keep the peace in a world on the verge of complete collapse. When one day he is forced to kill a member of a lawless biker gang, they swear vengeance upon Max and everything that he holds dear. What follows are the events that drove Max mad.

The background for this movie is pretty amazing. This film relied a lot on guerilla film making and creative money saving. With its budget of less than $500,000 it’s a miracle it even got made. With the film crew closing off roads for stunt shots- illegally without permits or using walkie talkies because their radios would get picked up by police.

Eventually the police did find out about the film and surprisingly proceeded to help because they were interested in the project. Another fun example being the iconic leather jackets that many of characters wear, all but one of them were actually fake in an effort to save money.

But back to that eye-catching budget. That miniscule budget compared to other triple A films helped the film win several awards. This biggest one being the Guinness World Record for highest budget to profit ratio of any motion picture.

My Take:

To start, this movie is awesome. Car chases, explosions, revenge plots, one liners; it has all the staples of a classic action movie. Everything from the car wrecks to the gunshots make the action in this movie feel visceral and real. But one thing I adore more is its backdrop.

This movie paints a picture of not the normal post-apocalyptic world we are used to seeing, but of a world just on the cusp of downfall. Of course, all that comes out the window for its sequels but those are just as awesome too. After all this is arguably the movie that inspired a genre ranging in titles from Waterworld, to Escape from New York, even Fist of the North Star.

However, I do have some complaints. Like how there are some character choices that don’t make a lot of sense in the context of the narrative.
But this would not be the only movie with that problem, and it is handwaved for the sake of the plot. Or how some scenes do not really hold up to the visual standard of 2018, but again this movie was made in 1979 and with that small budget mentioned above.

This was solid 8/10 viewing experience. I now want to marathon the whole series.

As always if you wish to join us for a showing of a movie you can find us Tuesday nights from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. in McCormick 3237!