That's exactly the filmsy plot thread for "Mad Max" -- it just happens to be showing at Embassy 5 today. The thread, however, does provide a sufficient frame for the vivid chase and stumbling sequence across the desolate Australian continent, which also carries a strong aura of sexual abuse, more of which is homosexual. .
The protagonist is a rank-and-file member of the police, played by Mel Gibson, who finally decides to use his own wrist after his wife (played by joanne) is brutally wounded by members of the motorcycle state and their shared son is murdered. The law prevails.
Like Clint Eastwood in "dirty Harry", he sets his jaw, fetches a black heavy-duty high-speed car from the police station's warehouse, puts the sawn-barreled shotgun in his holster, and wraps himself in the holster. In the flames of a terrible vengeance. In the final sequence of shots, for example, he gives the last remnants of the motorcycle state the choice to either watch their thighs chop off or be burned alive.
"Mad Max" is unpleasant, lacks continuity, and is almost certainly intended to tease casual moviegoers. It's worth noting that much of the Australian film's original dialogue ended up being translated from the subcontinent's thick "Old Australian" dialect into official Western English. You can tell this from the fact that the movement of the lips and the voice are a little out of sync from time to time.
King George also shines with an excellent cast. HM played a patient and strong queen who even tolerated his public molestation of her maid Miss P (AD). "Have we ever forgotten ourselves?" King George asked Miss P during a period of time when his madness had subsided, when he could evaluate his own life with unusual calmness. "Because we forgot, so I want to remember."
As it shows, the film ends up sounding like a beautiful memo, a symbolic record of acceptance and understanding, even those hitherto unbearable facts. "We've got to get used to it," King George finally lamented that his country was formed in America's colony. "I know there are still strange things to do. I saw a five-legged sheep once."
—JM, December 28, 1994.
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