Cast:Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Hugh Keays-Byrne, Steve Bisley, Tim Burns, Roger Ward, Lisa Aldenhoven, David Bracks, Bertrand Cadart, David Cameron, Robina Chaffey, Stephen Clark, Mathew Constantine, Jerry Day, Reg Evans
It is a couple of years in the future... The highways of Australia are ruled by violent gangs who have turned the highways into a battleground as they loot gasoline and terrorize the innocent. Max Rockatansky is a policeman who had everything... Until, a murderous motorcycle gang led by the evil Toecutter burns his partner Jim Goose to death and murders his wife and son, after Max killed their leader "The Knight Rider". Loosing his rocker, Max decides to take the law into his own hands as he sets out to get his revenge on the motorcycle gang and become the road warrior known as "Mad Max".
AMAZON.COM REVIEWS FOR MAD MAX (1979): The Road Warrior is already a classic, sans condescending genredistinctions like "sci-fi" or "action." But the story of Mel Gibson'sstately antihero begins in Mad Max, George Miller's low-budget debutin which Max is a "Bronze" (cop) in an unspecified postapocalyptic future witha buddy-partner and family. But unlike most films set in the devastatedfuture, Mad Max is especially notable because it is poised betweenour industrialized world and total regression to medieval conditions. Thescale tips towards disintegration when the Glory Riders burn into town ontheir bikes like an overamped cadre of Brando's Wild Ones.Representing the active chaos that will eventually overwhelm the dyingvestiges of civil society, they take everything dear to Max, who will exactdue revenge. His flight into the same wilds that created the villainsartfully sets up the morally ambiguous character of the subsequentfilms. --Alan E. Rapp
:
- Australian Film Institute
1979
Won
AFI Award
Best Achievement in Editing
Tony Paterson
Cliff Hayes
Best Achievement in Sound
Gary Wilkins
Byron Kennedy
Roger Savage
Ned Dawson
Best Original Music Score
Brian May
Nominated
AFI Award
Best Actor in a Supporting Role
Hugh Keays-Byrne
Best Director
George Miller
Best Film
Byron Kennedy
Best Screenplay, Original
James McCausland
George Miller
