In the future, a world war has led to an energy crisis. Scavengers and warlords claw for control of precious gasoline.
One such warlord is Col. Jacob Straker (James Wainwright), a former soldier who thunders around the countryside in a massive armoured truck.
When he begins terrorising a small community, he ends up in conflict with a mysterious loner, Hunter (Michael Beck), on a motorbike...
The filmmakers claim that they had come up with the idea for Battletruck before Road Warrior came out.
If so, the similarities are striking:
The movie is centred around a community terrorized by a former military unit who have become land pirates, stealing whatever they need with their heavily armoured vehicle. The community are assisted by a loner who rejects them until circumstance forces them together.
Battletruck was shot in Otago in New Zealand.
It is well-photographed and while the production is not massive, there is a sense of scope and detail to the mise-en-scene that makes it more interesting.
It lacks the sense of immersion of offscreen story that benefits Mad Max, but it feels worn and lived-in, rather than a simple imitation.
Michael Beck was fine as the taciturn lead of The Warriors. As a member of an ensemble, his low-key performance gels. On his own here, Beck is not bad but he is no GIbson.
I watched an interview with the director Harley Cokeliss and he revealed that his original casting choice was Ed Harris. That little nugget of knowledge rattled around my brain for the entire runtime.
Otherwise, the film is pretty well-cast.
Future Cheers star John Ratzenberger plays a local inventor and the late, great Bruno Lawrence plays a sadistic member of the roving gang.
The standout is James Wainwright as the villain, Straker - he brings a robust physicality and surface charm that is chilling.
With his indifference to the lives of the people around him and robotic focus on his goals, he gives the movie a charge of real danger that the rest of the movie cannot match.
When a prisoner tries to talk around a direct question, Straker cuts his throat and repeats the question to the next man.
While the other characters have their vague analogues in the Mad Max universe, his performance comes the closest to the unpredictable menace of Max’s various nemeses.
Because the movie is based around gasoline, and it takes place after a world war, it is easy to read Battletruck as a side-story in the broader Mad Max universe.
The truck is lumbering and not as sexy a villain as the various vehicles of the Mad Max flicks, but it is pretty menacing, particularly in how the filmmakers rely on the sounds of its engines to signal its arrival.
The third act picks up with some solid action but the movie is a little too by-the-numbers. We get a love story and a weak-willed traitor, but it all feels rote.
The movie is a little too respectable as well - it lacks the weirdness and gonzo energy of similar low-budget films.
The movie is worth checking out for James Wainwright’s performance, but otherwise Battletruck is not entertaining enough.
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