What defines a dystopia?  One way you can describe is by its opposite: utopia.  A synonym for utopia could be Heaven, but that is not possible in this existence.  God is with us, but to spend eternity with Him is the only true Paradise.  This is not totally useful, however, since that would make everything else a dystopia.  Oxford renders the word as, “an imagined state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic.”  I hope we would not label our current society as one typified by “great suffering or injustice,” or as “totalitarian or post-apocalyptic,” but His will be done.  My reason for these musings is because I just watched the original Mad Max (1979) for the first time, and I was confused.  Granted, I have viewed the entries in this post-apocalyptic franchise haphazardly, but from I have seen, there is little about them that could be construed as a functional society.  Likely, how the world goes from minor inconveniences on the roadways to savage tribalism is explained later.  For now, our title character, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), serves on an apparently organized police force.  To me, that does not suggest end-of-the-world.

The first shot of Mad Max features an askew sign for the so-called “Halls of Justice,” out of which operates said police force, the Main Force Patrol (MFP).  That could be dystopian, or just Australia where this takes place.  Max is doing what his job suggests, with his fellow officers tracking a person going by the moniker “The Nightrider.”  His actual name is Crawford Montazano (Vincent Gil), and he and his girlfriend (Lulu Pinkus) are out terrorizing the area in their hotrod.  Max’s associates all have trouble stopping Crawford, including Max’s partner, Jim “Goose” Rains (Steve Bisley), forcing Max to intervene.  However, just as Max is beginning to pursue, the reckless Crawford drives into roadblock.  The resulting crash leads to Crawford’s death, as well as his companion.  To the MFP, this is just another day at the office.  To the leader of Crawford’s bunch, the inexplicably named Toecutter (Hugh Keays-Byrne), the death of one of his number is unforgiveable.  Their motorcycle gang travels to the town to which Crawford’s body had been sent in order to retrieve the casket and cause the usual amount of trouble along the way.  While there, a young couple is targeted by the bikers.  They speed off, but Toecutter and company catch up, destroying their car and doing a number of unspeakable things to them, though we are thankfully spared most of the gory details.  Goose and Max find them, the male running bottomless through the fields, the female frightened in the tore up back seat, and one of Toecutter’s underlings, Johnny the Boy (Tim Burns), left at the scene, delirious.  Goose and Max take Johnny the Boy into custody, but when neither of the defendants show up to testify, the MFP is forced to release Johnny the Boy.  Goose does not take this development well and tries to beat Johnny the Boy as the criminal is leaving the station.  Toecutter and the rest note this behavior and decide to get even with Goose.  During a night of carousing (I guess?), Toecutter’s men sabotage Goose’s motorcycle.  Despite miraculously surviving losing control of his vehicle at high speed, Goose survives, only to be ambushed as he is transporting his wrecked bike.  Trapped in an overturned tow truck, Toecutter forces Johnny the Boy to light the leaking fuel on fire.  Goose once more lives through a terrible attack, but he is burned beyond recognition.  Seeing his friend and partner in such a state, Max approaches his boss, Fred “Fifi” Macaffee (Roger Ward), to hand in his resignation.  Fifi has been told to do whatever he can to keep Max with the MFP.  Instead of accepting Max quitting, Fifi tells his star officer to take his wife, Jessie Rockatansky (Joanne Samuel), and their infant son on a vacation.  As they stop to have a tire fixed, Jessie goes ahead to the nearby town to get ice cream.  Waiting there is Toecutter with his gang.  Seeing a seemingly unaccompanied woman, Toecutter tries to give her a hard time and is kneed in the groin for his efforts.  Jessie speeds away, picking up Max before their wheel is mended.  Toecutter learns from the mechanic (Nick Lathouris) that the Rockatansky family planned on traveling north.  They are found at a farm house near the shore.  With Max working on their car, Jessie heads to the beach.  This means nobody is looking after their child, who is inevitably snatched by Toecutter’s people.  Jessie, who had been spooked while on the way back to the farm, finds Toecutter with her child.  As for Max, he had run into the woods where he had heard Jessie screaming.  He is still there when Jessie, assisted by May Swaisey (Sheila Florance), the farm’s owner, make an attempt at getting away in the car with the retrieved baby.  When it breaks down after only a few miles, May tells Jessie to run while the old lady takes a shot at the motorcyclists.  It is all for naught as Toecutter and the rest run her down, severely injuring her.  Max is outside the hospital room and overhears the doctors talking among themselves, giving a dire prognosis.  Now he wants revenge.  Taking the souped-up vehicle from the MFP garage, he tracks down Toecutter’s gang one-by-one, leaving Johnny the Boy for last.  Max murders Johnny the Boy in a manner reminiscent of how Goose is burned, and the film ends.

While Mad Max has a brutal ending, the vestiges of civilization mitigate the effects of this so-called post-apocalyptic world, at least for this reviewer.  The MFP?  Hospitals?  Places to buy ice cream?  There even seems to be television programming.  If there is any evidence for the collapse of society, I suppose it could be linked to the rampage on which Max goes at the end.  A society is governed by rules, and this one appears little different, even if frayed.  Interestingly, this is something about which the Catholic Church has a lot to say.  One can look to Matthew 22:21, among other verses, where Jesus is shown a coin and asks the identity of the person on it.  He goes on to say when told that it is Caesar that one should “. . . repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”  Essentially, this means that you owe to the government what it needs to function, but that the rest should go to God.  It goes beyond money and taxes, but not much further.  I make the caveat because there are also St. Augustine’s words to consider: “An unjust law is no law at all.”  What one of the more famous saints is saying here is that if those in power command you to do something that is contrary to God’s law, then it is unjust.  We see some of this playing out in Max’s actions.  At first, he is a loyal upholder of whatever semblance there is of justice in this world.  This includes holding back Goose when he tries to attack Johnny the Boy upon the offender’s release.  Max may not agree with the decision, even sympathizing with Goose, but it does not justify meting out one’s own brand of justice.  Despite this, Max does exactly that at the end, which I also do not condone.  Ultimate remuneration lies with God.  That does not mean one should stand aside in the face of gross miscarriages of justice.  One should always stand up for good, and God loves the person who does so.  But Max’s actions are a violation of the sanctity of life, and thus counterproductive.

So, like so many of its kind, Mad Max is yet another revenge story.  That is why I do not recommend it as a Catholic, though it is a little hard to understand why it became the cult classic that launched a franchise that is still being fleshed out cinematically to this day.  Maybe it makes more sense if you are Australian, but for the rest, I would pass.