THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Like many other viewers, my initial big-screen viewing of the great chase scene in ROAD WARRIOR made me instantly deem that sequence one of the great action-chases in all cinema.

I still believe that. However, in my recent re-viewing of WARRIOR, I found a number of flaws that keep it from being a great myth-film overall.

Compared to the original MAD MAX, director/co-scripter George Miller devotes at least a bare minimum of time to explaining the reasons why the whole world is out of fuel. One consequence of this crisis is that the terrain of Australia has become dominated by gangs of marauders that prey on both settled communities and on other vehicles.

Max (Mel Gibson), having lost both his wife and child, becomes a lone scavenger roaming around looking for food and fuel. He's attacked by marauders led by the flamboyant Wez (Vernon Wells), but Max escapes thanks to his driving skill. He encounters a crazy old pilot, the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence) who tries unsuccessfully to hijack Max's fuel. After getting rid of the loon, he encounters one of the settled communities, and tries to make a deal for fuel. The settlers are hostile toward Max until the marauders show up and demand fuel from the compound.

Max manages to strike a deal with the settlers to give them access to a new source of fuel, and with the help of the repentant Gyro Captain, Max succeed in his task. His accomplishment causes the settlers who place a new faith in him, hoping that he may be able to help the entire community move to a new and more secure domain-- which means a major battle against the marauders.

The script includes a few "hero's journey" motifs: the potential hero's initial refusal of his task, his estrangement from the community, and so on, However, I never found the journey compelling, partly because I felt Gibson just phoned in his performance. The only actor I found just as vital as he seemed in my first viewing was Vernon Wells as the mad marauder Wez. The tricked-out vehicles and the metal boomerang were pretty cool too, but this WARRIOR didn't quite manage to conquer the world of cinematic myth.