Mad Max Soundtrack (1979)

Synopsis

The film is set in the near future of a bleak, dystopian and impoverished Australia that is facing a breakdown of civil order primarily due to widespread oil shortages. (This is not explained in this film but in the sequel, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior.)

Central to the plot is a poorly funded national police unit called the Main Force Patrol (MFP, derogatorily called "The Bronze" by their enemies), which struggles to protect the Outback's few remaining townspeople from violent motorcycle gangs. The MFP's "top pursuit man" is a young police officer, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), badge number MFP4073.

A member of one of the motorcycle gangs, Crawford Montazano (nicknamed Nightrider), escapes from police custody by killing an officer and stealing his vehicle. Max pursues Nightrider in a high-speed chase, which results in Nightrider's death in a fiery car crash.

Nightrider's gang, which is led by Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne), plans to avenge Nightrider's death by killing MFP officers. Meanwhile, they vandalize property, steal fuel, and terrorize the citizenry.

After the dangerous chase (which results in injuries to a number of officers), the police chief warns Max that Nightrider's gang will be out for him now because of Nightrider's death.

Max and his close friend and fellow officer, Jim Goose (Steve Bisley), are informed about the incident and go to the crime scene. They find Toecutter's young protege, Johnny the Boy (Tim Burns), and the girl of the couple in the middle of the wreckage.

Johnny is held at the MFP's dilapidated Halls of Justice pending a visit from the Court. However, when the attorneys arrive, Johnny is ordered released: the judge has set Johnny free because no witnesses showed up for the trial.

Shortly thereafter, Johnny the Boy sabotages Goose's MFP motorcycle while Goose is attending a show at the Sugartown Cabaret. His rear wheel locks up at high speed the next day, throwing Goose from the bike.

Goose survives, but after seeing his charred body in the hospital's burn ward, Max becomes angry and disillusioned with the police force and resigns from the MFP with no intention of returning.

While on holiday, Max's wife, Jessie, (played by Joanne Samuel) runs into Toecutter's gang, who harass her. She escapes, but the gang manages to track her to the home where she and Max are staying.

Filled with obsessive rage, Max once again dons his police outfit, straps on his cut-off shotgun, and steals a supercharged black Pursuit Special to pursue the gang. He methodically hunts down and kills the gang members.

Later, Max finds Johnny the Boy taking the boots off a dead driver at the scene of a crash. Max doesn't listen and handcuffs Johnny's ankle to the wrecked, overturned vehicle with a ruptured petrol tank.

As Max drives away, the camera shows Max's car from the front, with a large and fiery explosion in the distance behind it. Max blankly continues to drive in a rainstorm.

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