ONE OF THE MOST RELENTLESSY AGRESSIVE MOVIES EVER MADE” – Roger Ebert

Long before Mel Gibson charmed us with his good cop/mad cop routine as a Hollywood action darling in ‘Lethal Weapon’, and ‘Babe’ was but a pink glint in George Millers directorial eye, the pair had collaborated on the movie that would bring Mel to the attention of a larger audience and further stratospheric stardom, but more importantly would define the Post Apocalyptic film genre, and introduce one of the meanest sons of bitches to ever grace cinema.

Millers world of tomorrow is a broken place, and while it isn’t necessary to see the previous outing to appreciate ‘Road Warrior’, it is notable for paving the path our lead will ultimately tread. With the collapse of society following a nuclear holocaust, the last vestiges of law and order have fallen and psycho scavengers, feral gangs and sadistic enterprisers rule what’s left of the barren earth, where fuel is the key to survival, a fast transport the difference between life and death.

Once a member of the elite Australian Highway Patrol Unit, ‘Mad’ Max Rockatansky has long since forsaken mans laws, his humanity lost to barren roads and a heinous revenge for his slaughtered family.  Forging a new life in the wastelands as a scavenging vigilante and living on the razors edge of a brutal existence, Max is a husk of his former self, reborn harder than Wolverines kneecap, with no mercy and a threadbare patience.

The spartan use of dialogue from a mainly taciturn protagonist leaves the storytelling mostly to Millers direction, with only a brief intro explaining the current state of global dilapidation, breaking us in with a narrated montage reel at the film’s opening.

Like a man who’s lost it all, a weird western wanderer reduced to the simplest tasks of survival and revenge, Gibson delivers a performance bereft of charm, like Millers plot, stripped bare of niceties and audience pandering, and only really there to get the job done in the most explosive way possible.

After a rubber burning adrenaline shot in the opening chase sequence we slowly learn that a small group of survivalists have set up camp around one of the last oil refineries, and boxed in a makeshift fortress, fight to hold off the relentless horde of bike punks and bondage killers led by the steroidal hockey masked freak-show ‘Lord Humungous’, the perfect form of crazy malevolence for a world teetering on the brink.

In a bid to secure himself fuel for his own rig, the battered black and death on wheels sexy; last of the V8 Interceptors, Max enters into a bargain with the leader of the group; Pappagallo (a pragmatic Mike Preston), who seeing only a “maggot living off the corpse of the old world” is loathe to entertain the notion. But salvation lies in the least likely of vessels and an epic turn of events quickly gears into motion.

Without giving too much away for those who haven’t seen the film, this is essentially a car chase movie superimposed over a western with a post apocalyptic backdrop. Echoes of the Magnificent Seven ring out from the stripped down plot, but instead of banditos on horseback, Millers biker punks and crazed junk yard buggy jockeys form the enemy at the gates for the small band of beaten down settlers under constant attack in the refinery.

Notable turns go to Bruce Spence as an unlikely sidekick, playing the eccentric, entertaining and bat shit crazy Gyro Captain. With his cobbled together skeleton of a chopper, inventively booby trapped with a deadly poison snake, he’s the perfect mesh of brains meet lunacy is his grim quest to survive. And Vernon Well’s Mohawked marauder Wez, a twisted byproduct of life in the shadow of fallout, equals Max on the relentless stakes and ups him for sheer ferocity as the Humungous insane lieutenant .

But it’s with Emil Minty as a ‘Feral kid’ packing a lethal stainless steel boomerang that we find any trace of goodwill left in the morally ravaged lead. Minty in his ape like innocence plays an integral role in reconnecting Max with his forsaken past and humanity, the only other creature he shows any regard for being his bedraggled dog. And receiving the affecting consideration of others eventually becomes a pivotal turning point in Max’s strongly resisted redemption.

Yet what ultimately makes Gibson’s stony merc a candidate for Anti-hero Valhalla isn’t simply that under the duress of need and human kindness he eventually caves to a higher calling. It’s that even when that higher calling is beaten kicking and screaming out of him, we can still see that at his core Max is given to the same frailties as anyone else, with a past steeped in loss and a directionless future. He differs mainly in his methods of coping, which are bone chillingly uncompromising and like the final car chase in a beaten up Mac Truck; utterly unstoppable.

The fact that thirty years on there are still no adequate contenders to ‘Road Warrior’s post apocalyptic throne tells you all you need to know about its hold on the genre. Films like the ‘Omega Man’ and ‘Logan’s Run’ may have did it first, but ‘Road Warrior’ did it best, spawning an army of imitators and homage’s from the popular; Fist of the North Star courtesy of Tetsuro Hara, to the not so popular Cobra and Water World (or Stallone and Costner screwing the pooch as we like to call it).

There is currently talk that Miller has a forth ‘Max’ title; Fury Road underway, with Tom York tipped as the lead. But truly whatever comes next, it’s doubtful that the raw power, heart bursting adrenaline and explosive action captured in the dusty Mundi Mundi plains of Silverton, New South Wales could ever be replicated, no matter how big the budget or grand the intentions.

Because ‘Road Warrior’ stands alone as a truly raw, truly innovative piece of exploitation Cinema, and Max stands a lone wolf, black clad scavenger of the apocalypse, an icon of cinema, and true anti-heroism at its very finest.

“Call Me Snake”

Have you ever noticed that when you watch film or TV, read a book or play PS3, that the straight up do gooders don’t hold a candle to their slightly more unscrupulous counterparts when it comes to the likeability stakes. Isn’t it interesting that while we all like to see the good guy win, we like him or her  have to peel away a few layers of clean cut white credibility before the credits roll. Isn’t it interesting that the good guy, appeals to us so much more, if he or she is not all together that good.

“Everyone loves a Bastard” – Arnold Rimmer

The above goes some way to explaining how we feel towards characters, that unlike the traditional hero, are fraught with the frailties that we too possess. The moral ambiguity, the selfish agenda, the desire to do what pleases us, rather than do the right thing. In this vein anti-heroes are very appealing because, they much like us, malinger in the shades of grey as opposed to straight up white knights, or dark dwelling villains.

When it comes to StarWars we would all rather be Han Solo or Boba Fett than have the lofty aspirations of Luke “goody two shoes” Skywalker. And Dirty Harry has more appeal with his Magnum 44 than an army of badge toting wannabes. Anti-heroes make you feel good about being bad, or at least watching them being bad, and wearing deserving scumbags on their foot like a badly fitted shoe

At their best, Anti-heroes are all of the aforementioned bum notes, and bastardly to boot. The sort of guys or gals who do the right thing by default, use questionable methods to get there, and are only too happy to deal you a slug for spilling their beer.

In real life, none of us could ever lay claim to such adulation for this squad of often terrible rogues, but on celluloid we love them like fat kids love cake.

Far from a modern concept such shady characters have been around in literature since the turn of the century and beyond, in everything from battered PI’s in Hammers pulp noirs to Bob Kanes Batman. But it’s in cinema that we find some of the finest examples of the genre. Clint Eastwoods “Man with no Name” is maybe one of the baddest men to ever strap on a set of irons, and Lee Marvins “Porter” in Point Blank pursues his vendetta with a relish that would make a Mafioso blush.

When it comes down to it though, perhaps one of the best, if not one of the most popular embodiments of all things awful but appealing, comes undoubtedly with an homage to such classics in mind. So I ask you to take for your consideration John Carpenters B-Movie masterpiece and unstoppable cult juggernaught; Escape from New York.

“Escape” centre’s around Ultimate Bad-Ass and anti-hero par excellence Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), ex special forces hero, turned embittered renegade, making his living as an outlaw following a betrayal by his own bent government.

Now, corrupt governments and two faced politicos is no big news, but throw in a Post world war three America, a crumbling dystopian nightmare, where Manhattan island has been cordoned off by an impenetrable wall and used as a containment facility for the mass criminal population who run wild within, and you have the foundations of post apocalypse WOW!!

The de facto Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes)  has the American President (Donald Pleasence)trussed up as a bargaining chip, having been shot down in Air Force One over bad old Gotham. Carrying information that could make America the dominant superpower, big cheese Robert Hauk (Leone alumni; Lee Van Cleef) needs the Pres back in twenty four hours or the deal goes south, so offers Snake an unconditional pardon if he’ll go in and reclaim the goods.

To ensure Snakes on board, he’s injected with nano bombs in his throat so he doesn’t spend too much time thinking on it, and with that, the deadlines set for Snake to break into the maximum security pen that is NYC and bring out the Pres before his head goes BOOM!!

Carpenter makes no bones about the fact that he wrote “Escape” as a buckshot reaction to the then recent Water Gate Scandal, eschewing the dirtier virtues of the Commander and Chief, in a prescient comment that would long outlive Nixon’s term in the Whitehouse. And Russell has no problem admitting he was doing his best Clint Eastwood impression.

But the combination of Carpenters bleakly violent future, where gangs rule the roost in the former greatest city in the world, while the superpowers squabble in the aftermath of a catastrophic global conflict, teamed with an anti-authoritarian, one eyed survivalist, fuelled by desperation, hate and mad killing skills to pay the bills, is a pure antidote to the niceties of have a go heroes and paints a picture of government and the state that, while often only hinted at, is totally on the money.

The cast is small but effective, with Harry Dean Stanton, Adrienne Barbeau and Ernest Borgnine all working turns as crooks and crazies to help further along the plot, and Hayes is taciturn but to the point as the Duke. Van Cleef lends some serious old school cred, but really the show belongs to Russell’s Snake, who’s as a mean as a rattler and twice as deadly. He’s mercenary, industrious and a complete bastard, more a myth than a man, and a great ode to dusty vigilantes from another time, when men were grit, hands were fast and deals were sealed hot with lead.

While many would argue that “Escape” hasn’t aged well, is full of plot holes and is better off getting the remake treatment with Gerard Butler, I would argue, that in so far as great entertainment, a fantastic plot and a central protagonist harder than a Glaswegian forehead goes, it absolutely gets no better.

The added bonus of seeing Snake stick it to “the Man” hard enough to make him wince like a virgin on prom night is even more worth the money. So good in fact that Hideo Kojima based his central Character on Russell’s grizzled performance, right down to the inclusion of the eye patch and rank in his Metal Gear series, just one example of Snakes continual permeation in popular culture, and the fact that we love him like the legend he is.

So turn off the lights, slip in the disc, put on your best squint, and prepare yourself to feel very good about the nasty bad. Get ready for dystopian thrills, explosive spills and an establishment screwing denouement that gives “the bird” a whole new meaning, and enjoy the company of a Mister Plissken. Though maybe you should call him “Snake”

- The ’Bad Man’ McCann