Mad Max: Renegade (2011)

Really Surprised!

Admirable film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Aside from the fact that it completely screws my theory about the series time-line, Renegade is a well made, short film that expands the Mad Max universe and bridges the gap between the first Mad Max film and The Road Warrior.Everything about it captures the style of the first two films really well, honestly i felt like i was watching a deleted scene from Mad Max. (1) Normally with a low-budget short film you may expect to see some errors or possibly some questionable acting, but Renegade was quite good and the only issue i really noticed was a certain point where Max and Jess' (Max's wife) accents were really odd, nothing that really ruins the experience however.Full film available to watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phFDAJep1jo

"Mad Max Renegade" is obviously, as the title implies, loosely based on the "Mad Max" trilogy and gained some popularity recently with the hype around the new "Mad Max" movie, even if this short film was already made almost 5 years ago. It is an American 9-minute fan film written and directed by Paul Miller. I have to say the only thing I quite liked was lead actor Liam Fountain. It seems he had the looks and the grit for the character. Unfortunately, in terms of the story, the action and also the emotion (which always has been an interesting aspect to the franchise), this film falls flat. Sure it's not easy to pack all this convincingly into such a short time, but I certainly hoped for a better outcome than the one they actually delivered. It had a bit of everything in these 3 areas, but I'd have preferred one of these 3 aspects to be great and the other 2 non-existent. All in all, not recommended. I may be a bit biased though as I am not the biggest fan of the films either.

Fan films are often filled with corny gags and campy copies of the source material. Not the case here.This brief look into the dystopian world created by Miller and Kennedy is probably the most faithful fan nod to source material seen yet.There are budgetary drawbacks that are evident; some subtle, one not so subtle (hint: right side). But it is very easy to forgive those when you have a good (albeit brief) story, camera-work that is a nice homage to both David Eggby's and Dean Semler's styles, and an action sequence that proves you don't need a lot of cash to deliver the goods.This has all the hallmarks of the originals, and fits perfectly between the first and second films. You'll want to see more.

I was lucky enough to attend the LA premiere of "Mad Max Renegade" and did not know what to expect being a short (fan) film. One of the toughest challenges for any Writer-Director is to tell a complete story in a very short time frame which Paul Miller was able to do with this clever Mad Max fan film. One of Paul Miller's strengths is having a long history as an Art Director and that really showed as the detail of all the wardrobe, props, and the setting which the film took place was a true homage to the Mad Max films. Miller was even able to have an Australian "Interceptor" star car in the film! Great casting all the way around and a nice twist at the end of the film which got a lot of laughs when it was revealed. Anybody who enjoyed any of the Mad Max films will really enjoy this fan film... it was very well done.