Director George Miller cast the unknown Mel Gibson in the lead in this low-budget Australian movie, and in doing so, set both himself — Miller went on to direct two more Mad Max films and The Witches Of Eastwick — and Gibson on the road to success.
For international release, the cast’s strong accents were felt to be unintelligible outside Australasia so all the voices were dubbed. Now released with the original Strine accents, the film shows a very young, boyish Mel as cop Max Rockatansky, in some strange future, where the cops have high speed rocket cars to catch bad guys who have souped-up cars that go even faster.
After his best friend is maimed by a gang of bikers-from-hell, Max takes his family to a remote area, only to be pursued by the gang — leaving him ultimately to seek revenge.
