End of the world movies

Review – Mad Max: Fury Road

Posted on by Three Rows Back

To say the unbearably long wait for George Miller’s fourth instalment in the post-apocalyptic franchise that made his name was worth it would be the mother of all understatements.

Mad Max: Fury Road - the message is simple: see it on the biggest screen possible

Mad Max: Fury Road – the message is simple: see it on the biggest screen possible

Initial grumblings over the two-hour running time and the somewhat unclear motivations of certain characters largely evaporated to dust (save for the sudden switch in allegiance by Nicholas Hoult’s Nux) following a hugely rewarding second viewing of Mad Max: Fury Road.

The genius of Miller’s decades-in-the-making follow-up to his initial trilogy is that it is both sublimely simple in its narrative thrust and also a complex, world-expanding work of real cinematic vision that has ideas coming out of its tailpipe.

Beyond Thunderdome: Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) in Mad Max: Fury Road

Beyond Thunderdome: Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron) in Mad Max: Fury Road

It’s also the most brilliantly accomplished action film since The Raid 2: Berandal and a dizzingly demented piece of moviemaking that throws caution, and everything else for that matter, to the wind.

While Mel Gibson’s leather-jacketed lead dominated the action of Miller’s first three Mad Max pictures, Tom Hardy’s eponymous survivor often plays second fiddle to Fury Road‘s real star, Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), a trusted driver for the tyrannical Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne).

Bane of existemce: Max (Tom Hardy) in Mad Max: Fury Road

Bane of existence: Max (Tom Hardy) in Mad Max: Fury Road

Furiosa brings the full weight of Joe’s wrath down on her when he discovers she’s smuggled his breeding ‘wives’ out of the Citadel. Meanwhile, Max, who has been captured by Joe’s War Boys and used as a ‘blood bag’ for the sickly Nux, works to free himself and do what he can to survive.

It’s difficult to talk about Mad Max: Fury Road without first referencing the quite incredible action scenes. The fact that everyone is in some sort of vehicle, be it Furiosa’s bad ass War Rig, Joe’s outlandish monster truck or the multitude of pursuit vehicles that look like they’ve been chop-shopped to hell, naturally provides a pulse-quickening kineticism that is well served by Junkie XL’s Hans Zimmer-inspired score.

Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) goes in search of his wives in Mad Max: Fury Road

Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) goes in search of his wives in Mad Max: Fury Road

The first major action set piece that culminates in our leads driving headlong into an apocalyptic sand storm would normally be the dazzling denouement of most movies of this ilk, but that is merely the appetizer here for what is a banquet of senses-shattering craziness.

Miller continues to up the ante, throwing in chainsaws, spear bombs and a host of other weaponry until it gets to the point when Joe’s polecats (guys perched on the end of giant, bendy sticks that are somehow clamped to souped-up vehicles) are flying in from left and right trying to take out Max and co or steal the wives back from inside the War Rig. Words barely do it justice, which also might explain why dialogue is at a premium – when action is this compulsive who the hell needs talking?

The polecats get in on the action in Mad Max: Fury Road

The polecats get in on the action in Mad Max: Fury Road

Hardy once again lets his physicality do the talking in a role where more is said by his haunted, unsettling eyes and fists than his mouth ever could. His Max is searching for redemption as desperately as Furiosa, a character brought vividly to life by Theron in a performance that’s as feral as it is fascinating.

There’s so much more to be said about Mad Max: Fury Road, but it essentially comes down to a simple message – see it on the biggest screen possible.

Great Films You Need To See – Fail Safe (1964)

Posted on by Three Rows Back

This is my latest contribution to The Big Picture, the internationally-recognised magazine and website that offers an intelligent take on cinema, focussing on how film affects our lives. This piece about Sidney Lumet’s Cold War thriller Fail Safe was written as part of The Big Picture’s Lost Classics strand, although I am including it within my list of Great Films You Need To See.

No doubt frazzled by the Cold War running ever hotter, it’s perhaps not surprising audiences in 1964 preferred their nuclear scare movies to be in the mould of the scabrously satirical Dr Strangelove rather than the grimly portentous Fail Safe.

No film before or since has played out the nightmarish endgame of Mutually Assured Destruction to quite such a chilling and methodical degree

No film before or since has played out the nightmarish endgame of Mutually Assured Destruction to quite such a chilling and methodical degree

As the cold horror of what is unfolding dawns on America’s top brass, the President (played by Henry Fonda) engages in an increasingly desperate exchange with his Russian counterpart via telephone to find a way to stop the bombers from triggering World War III before it’s too late.

The tension builds as the President (Henry Fonda) and his interpreter (Larry Hagman) talk to the Russians in Fail Safe

The tension builds as the President (Henry Fonda) and his interpreter (Larry Hagman) talk to the Russians in Fail Safe

Director Sidney Lumet stages the film in a similar fashion to his 1957 debut 12 Angry Men. The drama plays out in several locations, each of them boiler rooms of fetid tension where the temperature is mercilessly cranked up to the point where a number of characters crack under the strain. Even Fonda’s President loses his cool as the terrible reality of what is happening sinks in.

By doing relatively little with the camera and refusing to pull away, Lumet is able to poison the atmosphere with a thickening dread; so much so that when Larry Hagman’s interpreter’s hands start to shake as he drinks a glass of water we question whether he’s acting or not.

The pressure builds in the War Room in Fail Safe

The pressure builds in the War Room in Fail Safe

The only one who seems unphased is Walter Matthau’s coldly analytical civilian advisor Professor Groeteschele, who is seen at the start of the film at a dinner party calmly rationalising how 60 million deaths should be the highest price America is prepared to pay in a war. The ultimate utilitarian, Groeteschele sees the unfolding tragedy as a golden opportunity to wipe Russia off the map to ensure that American culture, whatever’s left of it, survives. Ironically, his uber-hawkish outlook shocks even the most senior military brass.

The film explores the duality we feel towards technology through the banks of dials, buttons and flashing lights at Strategic Air Command headquarters and the imposing screen displaying the whereabouts of military assets and targets across the world.

The detestable Professor Groeteschele (Walter Matthau) coldly rationalises nuclear war in Fail Safe

The detestable Professor Groeteschele (Walter Matthau) coldly rationalises nuclear war in Fail Safe

Implicit trust has been placed in the instruments, which General Bogan (Frank Overton) confidently states are so good “they can tell the difference between a whale breaking wind and a sub blowing its tanks”. However, it’s this same technology that betrays us by sending the ‘go code’ to the bombers. We are all of us Dr Frankensteins, Fail Safe implies, courting our own destruction through our insatiable hunger for ever more sophisticated technology (a concept more colourfully explored in the Terminator franchise).

Fail Safe concludes with a disclaimer courtesy of the Department of Defense and US Air Force that safeguards and controls are in place to ensure the film’s events can never come to pass. It’s unlikely that would have made anyone watching Fail Safe back in 1964 any more comfortable in their beds.