Ferocious Fury Road a grand vehicular opera
FILM | Chuck Koplinski
Like a Road Runner cartoon on steroids – replete with gizmos that surely came from ACME, Inc. – George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road is a glorious ode to vehicular destruction, outdoing the Fast and Furious franchise at every turn with automotive choreography that could only be done by someone who learned his craft B.D. (Before Digital). If you’re looking for a cathartic, smash ‘em up experience, you’d be hard-pressed to find a film that gives you more bang for your buck. However, there’s more here than metal-rending moments as Miller deals with class warfare while upending traditional gender roles that speak powerfully to today’s issues of economic and sexual equality.
While it’s not necessary to be familiar with Miller’s initial trilogy, it helps in filling in some of the gaps of the backstory. For the uninitiated, Max (Thomas Hardy) is a former police officer whose wife and son were brutally killed by a biker gang, an incident that continues to haunt him in the wastes of the Australian Outback, where various tribes live after a nuclear incident has laid the world to waste. Our hero is captured immediately by members of Immortan Joe’s (Hugh Keays-Bryne) group, disposable fodder who bow down before their leader who promises them a glorious entry to Valhalla in exchange for their blind servitude. They, as well as hundreds of other povertystricken workers, live at the Citadel, a rocky outcrop that’s been fashioned into a gruesome stronghold where water and food are rarely dispensed and the resources of the lowly are harvested so that Joe and his cadre can live in relative splendor. Women are milked for the benefit of others, while Max finds himself being bled, a tube running from his arm to be inserted into anyone that might need a quick transfusion. Nux (Nicholas Hoult) finds need of him, straps him to the front of his souped-up car and heads out on a mission with the rest of the tribe to bring back Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), Joe’s best driver who’s taken an unplanned detour on her latest run for fuel to Gas City. Seems she’s helping Joe’s harem, five pristine young women, escape his clutches. This doesn’t sit well with the warlord, who puts a healthy bounty on Furiosa’s head and for the women’s safe return, an offer that sends anyone with two wheels in pursuit of her massive tanker and its precious cargo.
While some have criticized the film for being short on plot, the crux of the movie revolves around why and how Furiosa, Max and ultimately Nux retain their humanity in the emotionally barren, savage world they find themselves in. Every dystopian story deals with the same issue, yet here life seems cheaper while death occurs much quicker and is particularly cruel. Perhaps it’s a bit of pipedream to think that any sort of kindness could survive amid such circumstances, yet a sense of hope is what we cling to in every dire situation and Fury reminds us of the necessity of this. Theron personifies this with her thorny yet poignant turn as a woman who’s had parts of herself taken away, bit by bit, yet holds on to the notion that her own salvation lies in helping others. If the film has a fault, it’s that Max remains a bit of a cipher, not required to do much in the emoting department, simply there for acts of derring-do and day-saving. Hardy’s not to blame if Theron overshadows him, as he’s given little to work with.
It would be easy to dismiss this as just another action film but that would be a mistake. Watch how Miller holds shots during his complex chase sequences as well as how he moves the camera to enhance the action rather than distract from it and you’ll see the difference between Fury and the many imitators that have come before it. The director wants us to be a part of the action not alienated from it and he provides enough “Oh Wow!” moments to satisfy the most jaded action connoisseur. That he gives us characters we care for in the belly of these mechanical beasts provides us with an emotional investment as well.
