Movie Review: Mad Max (1979)

The movie stars Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, Steve Bisley, David Cameron and Stephen Clark.

My wife and I ended up watching this movie over the course of three evenings, mostly because we ended up starting it later than we wanted to and just had a hard time staying awake long enough to finish it in one sitting.

When we started watching it, I could remember seeing parts of the film when I was younger and enjoying it. However, as it turns out, when I watched this movie in its entirety for the first time in a long time, I realized it wasn’t as good as I remembered.

Gibson, I thought, did a decent job as the cop-turned-vigilante Max. I’ve seen a lot of movies like this and, most of the time, the lead actors pretty much just phone their performance in. But, he did take his role seriously and, because of that, was very believable.

And, to be fair, the movie wasn’t as predictable as I thought it would be, especially after Max puts on his uniform again and goes after the criminals. For a while, I did find myself wondering whether or not he actually wins in the end, especially when the motorcycle gang wounds him a few minutes into his chase.

My biggest complaint about this film is it is actually kind of dull for an action flick. The opening scenes are exciting, as is his final battle with the gang. However, the rest of the movie is very slow and just seems to drag on. In fact, I’m pretty sure my wife, who had never seen this movie before, was beginning to wonder why I wanted to watch this in the first place. And, to be honest, I was starting to wonder the same thing.

The movie does, admittedly, have its moments and, as I said before, Gibson does a decent job. However, the majority of this movie is actually much duller than I expected it to be and, because of that, wasn’t as enjoyable as I had hoped.

My Grade: C