Product: Mad Max (1979)
Rating: 5.0
Man Stripped Down.
To his feral state. Yes, I'm aware of the feral child character in Road Warrior but in Mad Max we see the beginning of this imagined society's serious decline. It's rather humorous that a film that seems so low budget to us today can be as entertaining and riveting as this one is. Watching this now, for the fourth or fifth time, I have to say that this very young Mel Gibson, did he not already possess a legitimate level of talent, would not have been so believable in this role due to his physical appearance. His polish and chiseled features really don't fit in amid the band of miscreants that is the cast, but we soon forget our initial impressions due to his performance. The people in Mad Max are far closer to man's actual state than most of us care to admit. The audience can completely relate to Max's reaction at the end of the film and we cheer for him and long to press our feet even more heavily upon the accelerator.