Mad Max (1979)
★★★½ — Mad Max (1979)
Mad Max arrived in Australian cinemas in 1979, a low-budget action thriller from Kennedy Miller Productions that few people outside the country expected to travel particularly far. It did, of course, travel very far indeed. Set in a near-future Australia where the roads have become the domain of savage motorcycle gangs and the police are stretched to the point of irrelevance, the film presents a society that is fraying at the edges rather than one that has already collapsed. That ambiguity, a world that is recognisable but wrong, gave the film a distinctive texture that separated it from the usual science fiction fare of the period. For a point of comparison in terms of the era's appetite for dystopian and speculative ideas, it is worth looking at what was being produced around the same time, such as Westworld or Fantastic Planet, both of which were working similar ground a few years earlier.
George Miller directed from a script he co-wrote, and this was, remarkably, his feature debut. Working on a shoestring, Miller and his team made a virtue of practical, high-speed stunt work on real Australian roads, and the results have an raw, physical energy that more polished but unremarkable productions of the period rarely managed. The film is shot with a genuine understanding of how to make speed feel dangerous, and the action sequences have a crunching, immediate quality that holds up. Miller would return to this world, building on the mythology he established here, and you can read thoughts on those later entries with the reviews of Mad Max 2 and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.
The cast is led by a then-unknown Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, a highway patrol officer pushed to a breaking point by the violence surrounding him. Gibson was in his early twenties at the time, and there is something unformed but watchable about his performance here, a charisma that had not yet found its full shape. Joanne Samuel plays his wife, Steve Bisley his partner on the force, and Hugh Keays-Byrne takes on the role of Toecutter, the gang's leader, with a particular kind of unsettling menace. Tim Burns rounds out the principal cast as one of the gang members. Gibson would go on to become one of the bigger action stars of the following decade, as covered in the reviews of Lethal Weapon and Lethal Weapon 2, but this is where it began, on dusty Australian back roads with a very small budget and a lot of ambition.
The best bit is the car Mad Max is one of those must-see films that isn't THAT good. The main villain Toecutter is absolutely brilliant though. Super sinister. It can't really work out exactly what setting it wants. It's post apocalyptic but it's still quite civilised. The effects and the violence are pretty good. Music is great and like I said the car is fantastic. Mad max 2 is way better
I think that tension between a recognisable, functioning world and the violence tearing through it is what makes the film an interesting watch even when it does not quite hold together. It sits in an odd no-man's-land, and you can feel Miller still working out what kind of film he wanted to make. What it does nail, it nails hard, and that is enough to make it essential viewing for anyone wanting to understand where the franchise came from. Just do not expect the sequel straight away and then be surprised when it turns out to be the better film.
Rating: ★★★½ | Year: 1979 | Watched: 2025-05-03
Trailer
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Watch in the UK
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from George Miller: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) · Mad Max 2 (1981)
More with Mel Gibson: Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) · Lethal Weapon (1987) · Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) · Mad Max 2 (1981)
More from Australia: Ocean with David Attenborough (2025) · Street Fighter (1994) · We Bury the Dead (2024) · Bluey at the Cinema: Playdates with Friends (2026)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)
