Mad Jock McMax

Rating: Null/10 (15 May 2003)

One has to concede that Mel Gibson achieved something remarkable in his cinema career of the 1980s and 1990s. It was, after all, not unheard of for an actor to go through his career playing essentially the same character. John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart immediately spring to mind as having set this precedent.
What Gibson did that was remarkable was to maintain not just the same screen persona, but broadly the same screen character through a large cycle of films. After three Mad Max films, four 'Mad Max Cop' films, one 'William Shakespeare's Mad Max' and of course this film - which I feel we may in all fairness rename 'Mad Jock McMax' - one thinks it reasonable to argue that Gibson had really cornered the market when it came to playing ultraviolent nutcases with dead girlfriends. It is only suprising that the lead role in the modern classic 'Mad Maximus' went to Russell Crowe instead of Gibson.
Then again, perhaps Gibson realised that he had taken Mad Max as far as he could with Braveheart. Braveheart is, after all, a real old-fashioned Hollywood epic, and as good a place to leave the character as any. It matches its style with a good old-fashioned grasp of history, only surpassed in the cinematic annals by Carry On Up The Khyber.
Patrick McGoohan is especially noteworthy in the role of Mr. Burns From The Simpsons - it is a role he suits down to the ground, and he effortlessly steals the whole show from under the noses of all.
Nonetheless, the praise heaped upon this film at time of original release seems now quite unwarranted. It was, and remains, something of a Robin Hood movie. Enjoyable and impressive, but not serious cinema. The liberties taken with history are breathtaking - the most grievious example being the direct link drawn between Wallace's death and the Battle of Bannockburn, which ignores the small gap of 15 years and the Bruce's hard-fought campaign leading up to that final battle.
It's a pity that one national hero should be so diminished by the praise directed at another. But then, one suspects that had the screenwriter been called Randall Bruce instead of Randall Wallace we may have been treated to a very different film.