Netflix Minute: Mad Max

Netflix Minute is a weekly feature highlighting a title from Netflix's catalog of instant view films. If you want to spend a night snuggled up with a bag of popcorn and don't want to drive to the video store, this is for you.

Old films are often fairly difficult to get into, as sensibilities change and some themes may be more effective in the context of their inception. However, classics generally rise above the rest, setting the standard for movies in the same realm of thought. Akira Kurosawa, Stanley Kubrick, Ingmar Bergman, Jean-Luc Goddard, and many other directors may come to mind when thinking about foundational films. While these visionaries certainly deserve their due praise, filmmakers who create action movies or comedies are more tricky to remember. George Miller, for instance, created a classic action film which is the subject of this review - Mad Max.

Mad Max isn't nearly as old as some of the works of the directors I previously mentioned, but the release year of 1979 puts a fairly sizable amount of time between then and now. As a result, it's easy to see the inspiration that Miller's work provoked, especially for films of the post-apocalyptic, dystopian subgenre.

The movie starts with a car chase scene where several policemen are chasing down an escaped prisoner called "Nightrider". The madman manages to outrun or outmaneuver his pursuers until Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) hunts him down to his eventual death. As the leader of a motorcycle gang, Nightrider's death inspires his minions to rampage under the banner of his number two, "Toecutter". Plundering the landscape already in ruins, Toecutter's gang tries to exact revenge on the few people accountable for Nightrider's death - the motley crew of police officers, including Max.

In light of the upcoming Mad Max 4 (starring Inception star Tom Hardy), I thought it might be best to dive into this iconic franchise from the very beginning. Admittedly, Max Max is no storytelling masterpiece, but the plot does keep things moving fairly well throughout. The revenge thriller basis for many of the events are still resonant to this day and I suspect build up Max's character for later films. The world is also a very key component to the mix, with plenty of half-abandoned towns, burned out cars, chain-wielding motorcyclists, and leather-bound men dotting the scene. It's elements like this that have clearly bled into many iterations of this idea of a post-apocalyptic society; I was most reminded of Fallout 3 during the film, with the roving biker terrorists resembling the Raiders in Bethesda's game.

Despite the appeal of familiar themes and environments, some little problems reveal themselves along the way. The score is often overbearing, with loud cues to forcefully stress the importance or drama of a scene while ironically making it difficult to pay attention to what is actually going on. Beyond that, some characters are clearly caricatures of personalities you might expect. This doesn't necessarily amount to a bad thing, but characters like the police chief and Toecutter's protege Johnny are completely unbelievable.

When all is said and done, I enjoyed my time with Mad Max. The abstraction of age did manage to wear on me through the loud score and odd characters, but the dystopian plot and barren landscape were more than enough to keep me going. It's clear that many of the aspects of Mel Gibson's first major picture have persisted through emulation and evolution, but there's definitely something to looking back on the original that inspired it all.

Score: 4 out of 5

Confused about our scoring system? Read this explanation.