Mad Max is, like The Pink Panther, one of those movies that most people know from the sequels. When you think of the "Mad Max" iconography--the punked-out maniacs in crazy makeshift dune buggies screaming through the desert--what you're really thinking about is The Road Warrior or Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

Mad Max, the original, actually takes place in a pre-apocalyptic dystopia--a world with plenty of fuel, a functioning court system, and regular nightly news broadcasts. This is a world in which Max Rockatowsky (Mel Gibson) can live in relative piece with his beautiful wife and cute son. When he's feeling burned out from his job as a highway cop he can take his family on a vacation to sandy beaches.

Of course, civilization is crumbling around the edges, at least in the Australian outback. Roving motorcycle gangs, led by a character called Toecutter, rape and murder as they please, and Mel Gibson and his fellow leather-clad interceptors are the thin black line between order and chaos, at least in this neck of the woods.

For the original American release of Mad Max, the producers, assuming we Americans were idiots, dubbed the Australian accents into American. Now there's a new print of the film, in the original Australian, making its way around the country for action fans lucky enough to find it. It's at the Film Forum in New York right now. Where else it'll be, I couldn't say.

If you've only seen the dubbed version on video or television, this re-release is worth seeking out. You can hear Mel Gibson speak his own dialogue, and shouldn't every movie be seen on the big screen at least once?

If you've only seen the sequels, you should be warned going in that Mad Max is a somewhat mellower film--a little more reflective, a little less campy than you might be expecting. There's no Feral Kid, no Master Blaster. There's no "two men enter, one man leaves," but there is a line about a hacksaw that comes close. Heck, Max isn't even mad yet. But he will be by the end of the film, raising the question of whether or not the coming apocalypse happened on an international level, or just in Max's own mind.

Not to get philosophical or anything. Mad Max has all the car chases, car crashes, and car explosions you could possibly want in a film. If you haven't seen it in the theatre, find it.