Re: Apocalypse Now: Forum Mafia for the dystopian future!
The film opens "a few years from now" in Australia, in a dystopian future where fuel is scarce and law and order has begun to break down. Berserk motorcycle gang member Crawford "Nightrider" Montizano has broken police custody and - with a punk woman by his side - is attempting to flee from the Main Force Patrol (MFP), the Federal highway police unit, in a stolen MFP Pursuit Special. Though he manages to elude his initial pursuers, the Nightrider then encounters the MFP's "top pursuit man," leather-clad Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson). Max, the more skilled driver, pursues the Nightrider in a high-speed nerve-wracking chase which results in the death of the Nightrider and his woman in a fiery car crash.
Nightrider's Armalite motorcycle gang - led by the barbaric "Toecutter" (portrayed by Hugh Keays-Byrne) and his lieutenant Bubba Zanetti (Geoff Parry) - is running roughshod over a country town, vandalizing property, stealing fuel and terrorising the local population. Max and his fellow officer Jim Goose (Steve Bisley) are able to arrest the Toecutter's young protege, a punk named Johnny the Boy (Tim Burns), when Johnny lingers at the scene of one of the gang’s crimes. However, when no witnesses show for his trial, the courts declare the case "no contest," and Johnny is released. A shocked Goose attacks Johnny and must be physically restrained; both Goose and Johnny shout threats of revenge at each other. After Bubba drags Johnny away, MFP Captain Fifi Macaffee frees his officers to pursue the gangs as they want, "so long as the paperwork's clean."
Shortly thereafter, Johnny sabotages The Goose's MFP motorcycle; the motorcycle locks up at high speed the next day, throwing Goose from the bike. He borrows a ute to haul his bike back to civilization. However, Johnny The Boy and the Toe Cutters Gang are waiting further up the highway in ambush. Johnny throws a drum brake at the Gooses windshield and causes him to run off the road and then - upon the Toecutter's insistence, and perhaps as a gang initiation - is instructed to throw a match at the Gooses ute which is leaking petrol from its ruptured fuel line. Johnny the Boy refuses and the Toe Cutter starts to abuse him and in the ensuing argument the lit match is thrown at the wreckage of the ute.
The Goose survives, but after seeing his charred body in the hospital's burn ward, Max becomes angry and disillusioned with the police force. Worried of what may happen if he stays in the job, and fearing he may become as savage and brutal as the gang members, Max announces to Fifi that he is resigning from the MFP with no intention of returning. Fifi convinces him to take a holiday first before making his final decision about leaving.
While on holiday at the coast, Max's wife, Jessie, (Joanne Samuel) and their son run into Toecutter's gang, who attempt to molest her. She flees, and returns to Max (who is getting their tyre fixed) but the gang later manages to track them to the remote farm near the beach where she and Max are staying. While attempting to escape, Jessie and her son are run down and run over by the gang; their crushed bodies are left in the middle of the road. Max arrives too late to intervene.
Filled with obsessive rage, Max dons his police leathers and takes a supercharged black Pursuit Special to pursue the gang. After torturing a mechanic for information on the gang, Max methodically hunts down and kills the gang members: several gang members are forced off a bridge at high speed; Max shoots and kills Bubba at point blank range with his shotgun; the Toecutter is forced into the path of a speeding semi-trailer truck and crushed. In the road battles Max has his arm crushed when it is run over by a motorbike, and receives a gunshot to his knee which he fixes with a makeshift splint to his leg. Driven further mad by the pain, and becoming even more relentless and ruthless, he searches for the final members of the gang. When Max finds Johnny the Boy taking the boots off a dead driver at the scene of a crash, he handcuffs Johnny's ankle to the wrecked vehicle and sets a crude time-delay fuse. Throwing Johnny a hacksaw, Max leaves him the choice of sawing through either the handcuffs (which will take 10 minutes) or his ankle (which will take 5 minutes). As Max drives away, the vehicle explodes; Max drives on further into the outback without turning back with his face emotionless.
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