Review #909: 'Mad Max 2' (1981)

In Mad Max (1979), director George Miller showed us a eerie Australia on the verge on some kind of apocalypse. Bikers gangs roamed the desert roads raping and pillaging as they pleased, while a small group of cops did what little they could to keep law and order. Small communities still existed, shops were operational, and institutions still had some sense of organisation, but when Mad Max 2 picks up the story, civilisation as we know it is gone, and thugs in fetish biker gear do as they like. Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), driven mad by seeing his wife and child slain, drives alone in his suped-up Pursuit Special hunting for what little petrol remains in the world.

It seems he has as little humanity remaining as the mohawked reavers he routinely smashes off the road and executes, until a man known as the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence) brings a nearby oil refinery to Max's attention. When he investigates, he finds a close-knit community desperately trying to protect what is rightly theirs from a huge gang under the command of a leather-masked brute known as Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) who are laying siege. Max enters the refinery carrying one of their injured, hoping to trade the man for fuel. When the mad dies, so does Max's hopes of getting out there any time soon, and soon the community is turning to Max for help in the hope that he can retrieve a gas tanker capable of carrying their valuable load and lead them to safety.

Mad Max 2's reputation as the one of the greatest action films ever made is not to be taken lightly. Good action should be clear, coherent and, of course, exciting, and the climax of the film, which takes up nearly of a third of the running time, is one of the greatest set-pieces ever committed to celluloid. It's basically one long chase scene, as a variety of cars and trucks converted to be bigger, faster and stronger try to take down the tanker. The stunts are performed so perfectly that it will make you wonder how certain shots were filmed without any fatalities. It works as a western too, with Max playing the role of the silent stranger who unwittingly becomes the hero. It may have the slimmest of plots, but Mad Max 2 is pure energy within a fantastically realised world; a world that has been replicated numerous times but never bettered.


Directed by: George Miller
Starring: Mel Gibson, Bruce Spence, Michael Preston, Vernon Wells
Country: Australia

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie