Mad Max: Fury Road

A chase film set in the desert. The water belongs to one man. Immortan Joe runs a rock citadel, releases water by measure, and keeps women as property. Furiosa is one of his drivers. She sets out on a fuel run and changes the route halfway; five women are hidden in the back of the tanker. Max is a prisoner at that moment. He enters the chase strapped to the front of one of the pursuing vehicles. From there the film is almost entirely a chase. One road in two directions, a sandstorm, a marsh, a night and a turn back. The narrative does not advance through dialogue. Max speaks a handful of lines in the whole film and the characters state what they want by what they do. What the narrative is interested in is not survival but ownership: the film builds a place where water, petrol, blood and people are property under the same logic, and the women's escape is set against it. There is a decision halfway. Instead of going forward the group turns back, and the structure of the film reverses there. Almost all the action is real. The vehicles were driven, the stunt performers really flew, and computers were mostly used to clean up backgrounds and dangerous details. It was shot in the Namibian desert after a preparation period of more than a decade. The editing is by Margaret Sixel, a long-standing collaborator of George Miller, and won an Academy Award; the rhythm of the film largely comes out of it. The film won six Academy Awards, all in technical categories. Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult and Hugh Keays-Byrne are in the cast. George Miller directed. Who it is for: anyone who wants action with real stunts and strong editing. Who it is not for: anyone looking for character depth; the narrative is deliberately thin and explains no backstories.