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Regular
Price $14.98
Starring:
Mel Gibson,
Joanne Samuel,
Hugh Keays-Byrne,
Steve Bisley,
Tim Burns,
Directed By:
George Miller (II),
Rated: R (Restricted)
Release Date: 1979
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Format:
Anamorphic,
Closed-captioned,
Color,
Dolby,
DVD-Video,
Full Screen,
Special Edition,
Subtitled,
Widescreen,
NTSC,
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Customer Reviews for
Mad Max (Special Edition)
Brutal and compelling
Max Max is an ugly, bare knuckle movie that shuns sentimentality and explanation. Set in a dystopian future (not really post apocalyptic as many reviews claim - there is no evidence of a humanitarian crisis preceding the action), it features a wild and desolate Australian outback with feral kill hungry violent gangs of motorcycles taking on a quirky, underfunded police force. Max, played by Mel Gibson, is an old fashioned road to calvary type hero. A police officer who becomes disillusioned after the savage burning of one of his colleagues, he quits, but finds the gang have not left him. In horrific scenes, the gang hunts down his family, and Gibson returns to extract revenge, a necessarily determined and scarred loner.
Max Max does not stretch out into many dimensions, but it contains a raw savage power and exposes something of the nub of the innate violence at the heart of man. A good one to watch in the line of movies that expose the raw seam below the surface of our civilization.Mad Max (Special Edition)
"Mad Max" stays to this day a striking, desolate, and memorable piece of cinema...
In spite of the fact that the 1981 film The Road Warrior--the second influential cinematic work of writer/director George Miller's Dystopian vision of the near future trilogy--leads to receive the anti-hero Max, released two years earlier, is where it all started... For it was here that Miller first brought to the screen his hellish vision, where civil society is under siege by crime and disorder, with the strength and charisma of a new young, tough, good looking actor by the name of Mel Gibson...
Gibson was just 23 years old when he took the role of Max Rockatansky--a young hotshot cop so emotionally wounded--and was such an unknown star that when the film was hitting the screens in the States, the preview trailers didn't even mentioned him but instead focused on the movie's coolest and most original car action ever filmed... In retrospect, of course, Gibson's portrayal of a relentless vigilante is an essential element of the picture...
In the Australian outback, Rockatansky is a motorcycle cop trying to keep order in a quickly disintegrating society... Vicious lawless bikers and road-raging psychopaths race up and down the forbidden territories, raping and pillaging the peaceful towns, and one such bunch ends up at the door of Max's wife (Joanne Samuel), and their 2-year old son... When they are both lying dead in middle of the road, Max is all driven over the edge, and so starts a high-speed pursuit involving wild rides, chilling fights, and memorable fast-motion suspenseful scenes rarely equaled in cinema...
Mad Max (Special Edition)
Mad Mel Max Gibson
This movie is simply Meltastic and if you like Mr. Gibson at all...YOU MUST OWN THIS MOVIE!!!
Mad Max (Special Edition)
The Saga Begins...
... and I don't just mean the Mad Max saga but the Mel Gibson story. I'd heard this movie got Mel Gibson noticed among the big players - seeing it today made me believe it.
The movie begins with a car chase, with some really gutsy destruction sequences, somewhere amongst which, Gibson makes his entry as an "Interceptor", a cop from the near future - where this story is based - trying to make order in this "Anarchie" (no kidding! that's the name of the Ln mentioned in the first few shots of the film!). The government is pretty much non-existent in this futuristic flick, and gangs of roadies have taken up terrorizing and literally ruling the outlands.
Max, along with his partner - Office Jim Goose, takes his work seriously, and intends to clean the scrounge of the town, before his partner becomes a casualty of the war. Max suddeny is afraid for his family, and realizes he's not ready to take this war to its bitter end, and decides to take a break from his cop-career.
What follows is an eerie rendition, out on the Australian outback, of the origins of the character of Mad Max, before it got the adjective Mad; with some really slick editing and heart-pumping action. The chase sequences are simply great and the lack of dialogues makes it that much more watchable. Not much to speak - if you're into killing amd ambushing for a living.
This movie is the first of the trilogy of Mad Max, and is a good one at that. You get to see where Gibson learnt the conviction and grittyness that has since marked so many of his roles, notably Lethal Weapon, Conspiracy Theory, and The Patriot.
Must see - for Gibson and Mad Max fans!Mad Max (Special Edition)
Not mad enough
This is an interesting film, which if occasionally a bit wooden, virtually created its own genre overnight, and made Mel Gibson a star.
Perhaps its most noteable feature was George Miller's use of unusual camera angles, which created one or two iconic images. Sometimes it has the feeling of an exploitation film, but it never develops in that way and by today's standards it seems rather tame.
It looks as though it was made on a pretty low budget, and I prefer the brasher sequels where a little more polish was added. It remains a film curiosity, but really not much more than that.
Mad Max (Special Edition)
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