ivilization has fallen after a near-future nuclear holocaust. "Mad" Max Rockatansky (Gibson), traumatized by the murder of his wife in the previous installment of the series, now lives a hardscrabble existence in the Australian outback, scavenging gasoline from other survivors to sustain his rootless existence. He eschews the company of other human beings and travels only with a fiercely protective, exceptionally well-trained mongrel dog charged with watching his back.
Ambushed one day by the Gyro Captain (Spence), a fellow survivor who travels in an ultralight helicopter, Max is back on top within seconds and ready to blow the Captain's head off. The Captain earns a stay of execution by informing Max of an unlimited supply of fuel available not too far away. A small community of survivors, intent on an exodus to the coast, has found a large supply of fuel, but they're trapped in their compound by a barbaric army intent on claiming that treasure for themselves.
Max uses a rescued captive to gain entry to the besieged community, which recognizes him as just another untrustworthy scavenger and takes him prisoner. There he encounters the idealist visionary Pappagallo (Michael Preston), whose people are losing faith in his ability to lead them past the invaders and out of the desert, the Warrior Woman (Hey), who initially greets Max with anger and suspicion, and the Feral Kid (Minty), who can't speak but who wields a mean razor-sharp boomerang.
The barbarians, led by the masked, scarred Humungus (Kjell Nilsson), lead an assault that goes badly for them, leading to the death of a blond teen beloved by the especially savage Wez (Wells). Wez goes berserk, demanding payback. Humungus subdues him, promising revenge when the time comes.
There seems no way out for Pappagallo's little community. But Max, who has already slipped his handcuffs, offers the community a deal. A way out, in exchange for as much gas as he can carry ...
An unredeemed loner's tragedy
As science fiction, The Road Warrior is awfully thin. Aside from providing an excuse for chase scenes and explosions, there's no particular reason why gasoline, instead of food and water, would become the most zealously sought commodity in the post-holocaust world it posits, and the plot, such as it is, would not be at all hard to recast as a western, with (let's say) isolated gold miners under siege by outlaws, who then find themselves offered assistance by a gunslinger played by John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.
As an action movie, The Road Warrior is superb. The stakes are high, the price paid for survival dear, and the choreography stunning. The final chase, in which a convoy of vehicles led by Max and Pappagallo attempt to battle their way past the raiders led by Humungous and Wez, is one of the greatest ever filmed: violent, eye-popping and consistently surprising, especially because not all the right people survive. When one audience favorite dies, midway through the chase, many first-time viewers gasp in astonishment: No, that's not supposed to happen. That has to be a mistake. (Indeed, the moment redeems a later fake-out, in which another audience favorite who seems headed for a bad end later turns up alive and winking; without the prior death confirming that this game was indeed being played for keeps, this happy development would emerge as nothing more than a cynical cheat. The point is that you can't guess who lives and who dies by familiarity with other movies. War doesn't play favorites that way, and neither does this film.)
As a character, Mad Max may be an iconic type, familiar from any number of westerns, but he's also a well-conceived one. The main thing he isn't is a hero. Instead, the film is ruthless in presenting him as a fundamentally broken man who will do the right thing when he has no other choice, but who no longer wants redemption and rejects it when it's offered. When he proves his value and trustworthiness, the community he helps tries to welcome him in; the Warrior Woman, in particular, offers him an apology that many films would have parlayed into a love affair between the two. Max is not interested, and only offers further assistance when he has no other choice. Indeed, one of the film's dramatic highlights is the scene where Pappagallo, who points out that everybody in his camp has also lost loved ones in horrific ways, angrily condemns Max for allowing his grief to drive him away from the rest of the human race. Max may be the protagonist we root for. But like it or not, he's wrong, and Pappagallo's right. The contrast with the arc of the Gyro Captain, who tries to abscond with a local hottie (Arkie Whiteley) before the final battle starts, is stark. The Captain wants to save his skin, and hers, but he joins the fight when he finds out she refuses to abandon her friends. His humanity is salvaged, in a way that Max's is not.
In short, The Road Warrior is a fine example of the kind of action film increasingly rare today: One that exists not as a thin collection of emptily explosive set pieces, but as a story of character, in which the action, however kick-ass, advances our understanding of the people at its core. It gives you reason to care.
