Along with such pests as jackrabbits and kangaroos, Australia ”a few years from now” is being afflicted by predatory motorcycle gangs. An elite leather-clad highway police force has been established to oppose them. This is the flimsy plot line of ”Mad Max,” which opens today at the Embassy 5, but it provides an adequate framework for some vivid chase-and-crash sequences across the unpopulated outback and a heavy dose of sadism with obvious homosexual overtones (…). ”Mad Max” is ugly and incoherent, and aimed, probably accurately, at the most uncritical of moviegoers. — Tom Buckley, 1980.