For quite some time into Mad Max, I had absolutely no idea what I was watching. I’d heard it was a post-apocalypse movie, yet that label didn’t quite seem to apply here. After all, though the Australian landscape was suitably barren, it didn’t look like the aftermath of nuclear fallout, either. Also, the buildings seemed to have electricity, no one looked more thirsty or starving than usual, and the over-abundant use of motor vehicles implied a decent supply of gasoline, oil, and mass-produced automotive parts. However, this clearly wasn’t the present, since pretty much all of the buildings look very crude and there’s nothing that looks remotely like a modern city. Yes, the title card up front said “A few years from now…” but what the hell happened in between? The general anarchy going around implies a government breakdown, but there’s still a system of police, laws, and courts in place (albeit a flimsy one).

It wasn’t until about twenty minutes in that it finally hit me: I was watching a Western. Seriously, the police exercise their own brand of justice with practically no oversight, the villains roam in gangs while acting transparently evil, and everyone else is completely scared and helpless. All that’s left is to swap out the horses for cars!

Once I started seeing this movie through a “21st century Western” lens, I had to further adjust my perspective for the sake of how absurdly heightened this film is. Without exception, everything in this movie is exaggerated. The costume design is absurd, the editing is a joke, the score is over-the-top, the plotting is predictable, the dialogue is hokey, and the actors all chew scenery like its sell-by date was two days away.

This is a schlocky movie through and through, but the actors are all clearly having such a great time that they make it an enjoyable kind of schlock. Hugh Keays-Byrne alone is cartoonish enough to make the entire movie fun in a sick kind of way. As for the young Mel Gibson, it’s easy to see why the world fell in love with him after this movie. I honestly found it refreshing to see this birth of a handsome and badass new star, just as his career winds down with a sickening bang.

Something else that added to the movie’s charm is that it didn’t try to overstep its bounds. In fact, the film was endearingly candid about how extremely low-budget it was. Every time the movie cut away from something the filmmakers didn’t have the money to show, I could almost feel director George Miller nudging and winking at me.

Having said that, the movie looks remarkably good for being made on a shoestring. For the most part, I’m of course referring to the motor vehicles. The cars and motorcycles themselves look wonderful, and the chase scenes are superbly presented. It’s actually kind of amusing to watch this cheesy, low-budget film, and see how its chase scenes so clearly drew from and influenced the car chase scenes in other movies.

Mad Max is stupid as hell and schlocky to an absurd degree, but damned if it isn’t fun to watch. Come to this movie for the amazing car chases, but stay for the over-the-top acting.

P.S. In its resolution, the movie unknowingly pulls a scene from Watchmen, seven years before the book was first published. I’m not really sure how to feel about that.