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It’s ingenious, but not without shortcomings. The second act is weighed down by Max and Jessie’s love story and it comes dangerously close to Redford-Streisand territory. There are a lot of gauzy hand-holding montages, long walks on the beach and sappy orchestral swells. Don’t get me wrong, I think we definitely needed to go there in order to dramatically justify some of the things Max does later in the film. It’s just that a couple of times you’re pretty sure someone’s about to break out in song and it feels a little awkward. It’s okay, it’s just a little long winded. Think of it like a slightly overcooked steak - it’s still a steak, and steak is good. But it’s a little tough to swallow.

Aside from that, apply the same caveats you would to any R rated motorcycle revenge flick. Mad Max is a brutal ride, and at times the large quantity of violent tragedy and black humor start to make it feel a bit like a horror flick. But you have to credit George Miller for showing restraint and creativity with his directorial magnum opus. The worst bloodshed is kept off screen; as certain scenes build momentum it’s already pretty obvious what’s about to happen. When it does, you want to shake your fist at the screen until you realize the only place you actually saw it was in your head, and there’s nobody to blame for the chills running up your spine but yourself. So if you can’t handle a good scare - or a bad one - I’m warning you now. These are not nice people. They do not live in a nice place. Nice things are not going to happen to them.

But if this kind of stuff was too much for you to handle, you’d be reading US Weekly instead of this. Don’t let the endless parade of imitators (or that thing they did with Tina Turner) put you off. Mad Max is well worth your time, especially if you haven’t seen it already. It’s a game changer, and part of the reason is that Mel Gibson guy I was telling you about. The movie is a star vehicle (no pun) and regardless of how you feel about him, he’s a rare talent who easily rises to the challenge. The whole film is pretty well cast, but Gibson was going to be a star one way or another. With a lesser actor in the lead, nobody further west of New South Wales would ever have heard of Mad Max. When I think of Mel Gibson I try to think of the phenomenal actor he once was, and not so much the train wreck we see in the tabloids today.

He might be gone now, but like Toecutter would say...like Quentin would say...just think of him when you look up at the night sky.

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