mikexx

"The Road Warrior" (Mad Max 2's original American distribution title) is in one of those genres not normally nominated for prestigious accolades of the type festooned upon more snooty fare, let alone expected to win any. So when one does (and this one did, to the tune of six Saturns, with one win), you can believe that it's much better than your standard drama dreck decked with Academy Awards.

Firstly, "The Road Warrior" does not suffer any of the grating afflictions of the modern (from say, circa mid-1990s onward) era: flagrantly incongruous quota-casting, shaky-cam, lack of ensemble interplay due to actors not being in the same location (hence stand-ins in dialogue scenes being ubiquitously shot-from-behind so we can't see two faces simultaneously), eardrum-bursting subwoofer blares interspersed with "whisper-speak", bad CGI, and god-awful incessant camera movement (especially those detestable "snail" tracking-shots in quiet scenes, which are a permanent viral infestation upon two decades of filmmaking by the date of this review).

Made at the apex of the early-1980s high-water mark of cinema, almost every scene is a unique gem of cinematography, set, prop, and wardrobe design. It is among the most-carefully cast films I've ever seen, I assert without hyperbole, and everyone is ably handled by a director not adverse to reshooting his disparate menagerie until they have at last interleaved their lines and movements without error.

All involved were unknown outside if Australia at the time, and, aside from Mel Gibson, most remain so. This was for the good here, as it is a regrettable aspect of stagecraft that, upon achieving fame, actors immediately season into incurable pink, clove-studded hams by dint of being to flex contractual muscle in new projects as well as overpower less-than-alpha directors. What do I mean by "ham"? Take William Shatner of Star Trek (in)fame(y), whose smirking, cock-sure face figuratively graces the third sense of the definition for "ham" in the dictionaries. But can you just guess who was the first, archetypal ham who made the mold for Shatner to occupy? Why, the one and only Orson Wells himself, in "Citizen Kane" no less! Yes, *that* "Citizen Kane", near-universally regarded as the best film ever made, and high exemplar of the sort of haughty tripe that sophisticated and cultured snobs can throw their support behind without worrying loss of social standing should it ever come to light that they ever once stooped to the gauche, gladiatorial entertainment of desperate men astride snarling machines. But you cannot watch "Citizen Kane" without being constantly reminded of an overbearing Orson Wells bearing down on you. --Hamming can work if the whole point of the picture is to showcase charisma rather than tell a story (e.g., the lengthy string of similarly-titled Bing Crosby and Bob Hope collaboration comedies), but it poisons straight fiction requiring immersion. "The Road Warrior", by virtue of its fresh faces, avoids this entirely, not to mention that the youthful and dour-depicted Max isn't a ready analog to Gibson's later, over-to-top eye-bulging in "Lethal Weapon" onward -- it's easily possible to assume, in a state of ignorance, that they are not the same actor. ("The Road Warrior" sequel "Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome" is not quite as pristine, although it remains very enjoyable. "Fury Road", the fourth and by far the most flaccid, try-hard film of the franchise, possesses none of the cast of the original trilogy, and the reboot suffocates under the weight of anachronistic, smuggled-in contemporary narratives, and less cohesive overall filmmaking in general. If your opening shot is of a charmless Tom Hardy urinating, you're doing it all wrong.)

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"The Road Warrior"'s bleak setting is one of harsh abidance to brutal realities: There are no roundhouse-kicking ninja slasher-girls here, as a cold appreciation of fast-twitch muscle-fiber ferocity is immediately evident from the first scene. This is fiction, but decidedly not fantasy. The landscape is the definitive post-apocalyptic wasteland, and it has no place for even the least of weaknesses save behind the walls of fortified bunkers: The viewer is given a brief glimpse of tolerated insanity in the second act, and rightly recoils as if confronting a deadly disease.

What is taught in the pitiless, Darwinian landscape of "The Road Warrior"? We learn how a nucleus of civilization survives amidst depravity; that it requires guile, the wisdom to reject the temptation of the "easy", and the determined bravery of those who undertake the risks of struggle over submission.

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My favorite scenes are all quite short, and each involves depictions of decision-making. In the first, Max has bartered for fuel to bring back a semi tractor-trailer, has secured it, and is set to return to the camp. He stops briefly on the empty road, seeming to weigh his options. He has bluffed his way out the camp (which holds his previous vehicle) but now he has another, with fuel to go. He knows where the raiders are and could avoid them if he so chose, leaving behind a bloody stand-off he wants no part of. -- Is important to realize that Max is not a selfless "knight in shining armor" who'll needlessly sacrifice himself for an altruistic good. Does his conscious nag him? Perhaps a little, but not excessively so; he is after all a survivor in the wasteland. But he knows that running is also wanting: How far could he really get in a big-rig on only fifteen gallons, before being on fumes again? ....much less far than in his car outfitted with two enormous supplemental fuel tanks, that is certain. Therefore, he will run the raider gauntlet to retrieve the car. He makes his decision, checks his weapon to assure that its shells are still there, nervously licks his lips, releases the clutch, and resumes his way back to the camp. Gibson's portrayal is appropriately apprehensive rather than superheroic. He talked the talk, and now he's gonna walk the walk he got himself into.

The second scene has "The Humungus" (the imposing leader of the raiders) retrieving a powerful, scoped, long-barreled revolver from its case; it is the apex weapon depicted in the film, and symbolic of lost, superior-craftsmanship technology. We see that he has only a half-dozen or so rounds of ammunition remaining. How many of these extremely precious bullets will he devote to the encounter? He selects just one to chamber. When it comes time to fire, he can choose only one of: targeting a driver hoping to kill him, or targeting the vehicle hoping to disable it.

The third scene is a brief bit of dialogue between Pappagallo, the leader of the refiners, and one of his subordinates: "You're letting him go! Well, let's keep his vehicle at least!", exhorts the underling, referring to Max, who has returned the semi and has had his car restored to him by Pappagallo per their agreement. "He fulfilled his contract; he's an honorable man," pensively replies Pappagallo, who has it fully within his capacity to renege and do as he determines best, and especially so because fuel is scare, and very soon quite finite indeed. But, he is a man of principle, and Max has proven that he is not raider "garbage". Pappagallo does not reveal his entire hand to Max, however, for there is one card whose importance secures the future of the entire settlement. It is a secret that Max does not need to know because he is not one of them, and hence it is not shared. --This context will not occur to the viewer until after he has completed the film, and likely not until he experiences the scene again in a subsequent viewing.

Less well-crafted films are absent these depictions of important decision-making, even though such scenes need occupy no more than a few seconds apiece, and hence they lack immersive verisimilitude.

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Despite its heavy veneer of gratuitous gratification for fans of seemingly mindless action devoid of excess banter, "The Road Warrior" is an intricate and tightly-scripted film worthy of repeat viewing.

There are few things more quintessentially sci-fi than an alternate-history paradox in which the writers reward the fans' knowledge previous entrees in the franchise, all the while keeping any plotholes well below the level of immediately obvious.

I would have liked to see a little more of this timeline, and think the production team missed a golden opportunity to build a cliffhanger around it.