Character page for Mad Max (1979)
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Max Rockatansky
- See here.
Jessie and Sprog
Played by: Joanne Samuel (Jessie), Brendan Heath (Sprog)
Max's wife and son, respectively. Whilst Max is on a vacation with them to try and mentally recover after Goose's mutilation, Toecutter's gang tracks them down and kills them to get back at Max for his part in killing one of their gang's members, the Nightrider.
- An Arm and a Leg: When Jessie is seen on life support in the hospital, she's missing an arm.
- The Lost Lenore: Their deaths is what drives Max to his Heroic BSoD and brings about his Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- No Name Given: Sprog is actually Australian slang for "child".
Goose
Played by: Steve Bisley
Max's fellow MFP officer and his best friend on the force. Attacked by the Toecutter's gang for his part in the death of one of their crazier members, the Nightrider, he is horrifically mutilated by being burned alive. His fate scars Max so much that he has to take a vacation to try and recover, and is one of the incidents that lead to Max becoming the Road Warrior.
- Aborted Arc: The early scripts for The Road Warrior included The Reveal that the Big Bad Lord Humongous was in fact Goose, having been driven murderously insane by the pain of his burns and undergone a complete Face–Heel Turn. While it's unclear when this plot point was dropped, it's clearly no longer the case in the finished movie; while Humongous does have burn scars hidden by his mask, they don't cover his whole body like they did with Goose who was almost fried to a crisp, Humongous is much bigger and muscular than Goose, and while his real identity is never revealed,
Word of God states that he's ex-military, not police. - Badass Biker: He's the MFP's top motorcycle cop.
- Beware the Nice Ones: He goes from comforting a rape victim to outright frightening in a heartbeat when dealing with the suspect in said rape case. When Johnny gets Off on a Technicality, he takes it very badly and manages to break Johnny's nose before being restrained by Max.
- Body Horror: What little we see of Goose post-burning. His arm looks like a roasted chicken leg.
- Chivalrous Pervert: While he's known as a womaniser, he abhors rapists, even trying to bring Johnny to justice for raping a young woman.
- Cowboy Cop: He's a lot less by the book than Max or Fifi. During his three day patrols, he's been known to go drinking and pick up women. He also tries to beat Johnny when he's being released from custody.
- The Lancer: Is Max's best friend and pairs off with him until he recovers from his leg injury.
- Meaningful Name: His name is Goose and he gets cooked.
- Kill It with Fire: Johnny burns him alive in a wrecked car at the Toecutter's insistence. He survives, but is very badly injured.
- Nice Guy: Despite his womanizing ways and vulgar sense of humor, Goose is a nice guy who's full of life. He really shows this when he finds a raped and traumatized girl at the hands of Toecutter's gang. When he finds her, he tries to calmly convince her that he's not gonna hurt her and it works.
Johnny the Boy
Played by: Tim Burns
A snivelling, weaselly toad of a man involved with the Toecutter's gang.
- Addled Addict: He's either high or coming down for most of his onscreen time, making him essentially useless to the gang.
- Cloudcuckoolander: He can barely maintain a conversation without drifting off or bring distracted.
- Dirty Coward: Begs for his life and tries to excuse his actions, saying that he was forced by the gang to kill people and he never really wanted to.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He makes Goose crash, and laughs at his misery, but gets extremely distressed at Toecutter's order to burn him. Johnny's refusal makes him angry and Toecutter attacks Johnny, demeaning and hitting him. In the scuffle the match is tossed onto the car and Goose goes up in flames.
- Inadequate Inheritor: Toecutter wants him to take Nightrider's place, but Bubba disagrees, and from what little we see of either of them, Johnny is a snivelling sadsack compared to Nightrider, who didn't break until right at the end.
- Life-or-Limb Decision: When Max finally catches up to him after disposing of Toecutter and the other bikers, he handcuffs him to a wrecked vehicle, gives him a hacksaw and sets the vehicle to explode. It's implied that Max lied to him about being able to escape in time by sawing off his leg, and the car explodes much sooner than promised.
- The Load: Bubba Zanetti sees him as this, as he remains at the scene of the gang rape to get high and promptly gets arrested. The series of events that result from this arrest lead to the entire gang being wiped out.
- Off on a Technicality: The charges against him are dropped when none of the witnesses show up in court.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: His reasoning for taunting Goose after his release. Said connections aren't too happy about his bragging.
- Smug Snake: Carries traits of this, especially after the courts release him due to the witnesses being too afraid to testify.
- Tragic Villain: He is clearly mentally ill, and even shows that he has some standards, but the almost-Apocalypse isn't exactly rife with opportunities for treatment, and full of bad role models.
Toecutter
Played by: Hugh Keays-Byrne
Anything I say. What a wonderful philosophy you have.
A vicious, murderous criminal biker, whose gang serves as a precursor to the raiders that will terrorize the remnants of civilization once the End comes. Outraged by Max and Goose causing the death of one of his followers, the Nightrider, he determines to get back at them.
- Arch-Enemy: Is this to Max, due to having killed his family.
- Badass Biker: He's an awful human being but he's a sinister and competent bike rider.
- Big Bad: The main antagonist of the film.
- Blade Enthusiast: He keeps a meat cleaver tucked into his boot and uses it against the hot rod to take it off the road before his gang rape its occupants.
- Car Fu: Max disposes of him by running him down with a truck.
- Doesn't Like Guns: Zigzagged. Upon being threatened by May wielding a shotgun, he says, "Ahh! I hate guns!" However, earlier in the film, he uses a shotgun to threaten Johnny.
- Domestic Abuse: His relationship with Johnny is fraught with insults, humiliation, and even violence.
- Evil Mentor: Dialogue between himself and Bubba shows that Toecutter sees the potential for Johnny to become another Nightrider. Zanetti does not, seeing Johnny as just another scag.
- Evil Plan: Destroy Max for killing one of his henchmen.
- Faux Affably Evil: His polite behavior towards Max's wife and Johnny can quickly turn to violence at a moment's notice.
- For the Evulz: Like most of the outback raiders, he seems to exist for no reason other than to cause as much mayhem and pain as he can for his own sadistic amusement.
- Hate Sink: He is the leader of a murderous biker gang. When one of his men is killed in a car chase with Max, he leads said gang on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. As they hunt Max down, they rape and murder various people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. After they find Max, they run down his wife and young son.
- Kick the Dog: Toecutter's gang spend their days constantly kicking dogs, raping and murdering random people For the Evulz.
- Large Ham: Loves to chew the scenery.
- No-Nonsense Nemesis: While Bubba wants to toy with Max, Toecutter wants him to hurry up and finish him off.
- Non-Indicative Name: At no point does he cut off anyone's toes.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Toecutter's only interests.
- Undignified Death: During the final chase, a random big rig comes out of nowhere and runs him over, which is a pretty anticlimactic death for someone so scary and evil.
Bubba Zanetti
Played by: Geoff Parry
A brutal thug who serves the Toecutter as his righthand man.
- Awesome, but Impractical: Prefers a Mauser C96 and is not just very accurate with it, but downright precise. Johnny claims that he should use a bigger gun to waste MFP officers, to which Bubba retorts that Johnny has no sense of style and is chickenshit.
- The Dragon: He's number two to the Toecutter.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: He manages to kneecap Max from an impressive distance with a pistol.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: He's a stoic man who doesn't participate in the gang's rowdy behavior, meanwhile he looks almost bored watching Goose burn to death and appears to enjoy shooting and running over Max.
- Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: Downplayed. He shoots Max alright, but only in the leg before running over his arm. The Toecutter even lampshades it, telling him to quit toying.
Captain "FiFi" MacAfee
Played by: Roger Ward
The hard-bitten, long-suffering chief of the MFP station.
- Bald of Authority: His head is completely hairless aside from his neatly trimmed moustache.
- The Chains of Commanding: As Da Chief of the MFP, it's up to him to keep order in the Australian outback Just Before the End, all with few patrolmen, a garage of old, decaying patrol vehicles, a shoe-string budget, and his best officer on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
- Leatherman: His appearance gives this impression.
- Real Men Wear Pink: A huge, muscular Da Chief... who's named Fifi.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: He's very close with his officers and tries everything to keep Max on the force, including securing funding for a Cool Car. When Max tries to quit, he decides to give him a few weeks off to get him to change his mind.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: After Max leaves the MFP, he's not seen in the film again, and his ultimate fate is unknown. Although a panel in the Fury Road comic that reveals that Charlie and Roop joined Immortan Joe's army after the End.
- Wide-Eyed Idealist: He believes that in order to keep the peace in a falling-apart Australia, he has to inspire heroism. Hence why he tries to keep Max on the job regardless of the latter's objections.
The Nightrider
I am the Nightrider! I'm a fuel-injected suicide machine!
Played by: Vincent Gil
A drugged up psychotic and a member of Toecutter's gang. He kicks off the feud between Max and Toecutter when Max and Goose's attempt to corner him result in him fatally crushing his vehicle.
- Badass Boast: Ninety percent of his dialogue consists of this. The other ten percent consists of raw despair.
- Badass Driver: He evades capture and takes out both the "March Hare" and "Big Bopper" pursuit vehicles, totaling them. Of course, he's nowhere near as good as Max.
- Cop Killer: We don't see it onscreen, but it's mentioned over the radio that he's killed an MFP officer, which is why he's driving an MFP Pursuit Special. The news report after the opening chase mentions that this occurred while he was being arraigned for killing another MFP officer at a roadblock.
- Despair Event Horizon: Crosses this when Max demonstrates that he's just as skilled a driver, if not more, than he is, and just as willing to take risks. If you pay attention to his dialogue in the seconds before his death, it's also implied that he's lashing out as a reaction to civilization collapsing around his ears.Nightrider: It's all gone, it's all gone! There ain't going to be nothing left!
- Dirty Coward: Like Johnny The Boy, the Nightrider is really a pathetic coward who immediately breaks down and begs for his life when he no longer has the advantage.
- Dodge by Braking: He avoids Roop's shotgun blast by slamming on the brakes.
- Drugs Are Bad: It's heavily implied he's coked out of his skull.
- Evil Is Hammy: One of the hammiest in the entire film series, spanning four decades.
- Famed In-Story: He's regarded as a legend among Toecutter's gang.
- Freak Out: When he loses the Game of Chicken with Max, he has a Villainous Breakdown, blubbering that everything is lost.
- Go Mad from the Apocalypse: His sudden shift from hammy road hellion to a sobbing wreck lamenting how "there aint' going to be nothing left" indicates that the collapse of civilization drove him mad.
- I Shall Taunt You: He keeps taunting the pursuing MFP officers over the radio, especially once he takes the March Hare and Big Bopper patrol cars out of the chase.
- Knuckle Tattoos: Of a sort. He has the word "death" tattooed on his foot, one letter on each toe.
- Large Ham: Is a screaming pile of insanity from start to finish.The Nightrider: You should see the damage, bronze. Huh? Hahahah. Metal damage, brain damage. Heheheh. Hey you listen bronze. I am the Niiightrider. I'm a fuel injected suicide machine. I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the ouuut-of-controller! I'm the Nightrider, baby,and we ain't never comin' back! The Toecutter - he knows who I am. I am the Niiightrider! I am the chosen one. The mighty hand of vengeance, sent down to strike the unroadworthy! I'm hotter than a rol-lin' die. Step right up, chum, and watch the kid lay down the rubber road, ride to freedom!
- Mood-Swinger: Goes from laughing hysterically to sobbing, possibly due to drugs.
- Never Speak Ill of the Dead: Toecutter and his gang briefly terrorize the guy at the train station who comments on how little of him there is left.
- Not Enough to Bury: He crashes into a truck full of gasoline drums. Ka-Boom. Although, he is given a coffin, so presumably, some piece of him was recovered.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: He broke out of police custody, stole an officer's car, and even picked up a lady along the way.
- Oh, Crap!: Once he realizes he can't shake Max, his hyper-cheerful attitude takes a complete 180.
- Paper Tiger: In both personality and talent, he's flying high until he runs into someone who matches/surpasses his skills, then immediately crumbles.
- Plot-Triggering Death: While the deaths of Jessie and Sprog are what triggers Max's Roaring Rampage of Revenge, it's the Nightrider's death that brings the Toecutter's gang into the area, since they come to collect his body and gang rape a couple in the process, leading to Johnny's arrest and all the subsequent events that result from that.
- Starter Villain: He's being pursued by the MFP in the first film's opening scene and leaves them for dust until Max turns up.
- Waxing Lyrical: His rant, quoted under Large Ham, quotes the songs "Rocker" and "Live Wire" by AC/DC.
- The Worf Effect: His taking out of three pursuing MFP vehicles serves to show how good Max is behind the wheel when he finally catches up with him.
May Swaisey
Don't Mess With May
Played by: Sheila Florence
An elderly woman and friend to Max's family. She owns a farm out in the woods that Max and Jessie stay at.
- Cool Old Lady: She's still active in her old age, and quite friendly to Max and the family.
- Hope Spot: She manages to get Jessie and Sprog clear of the gang, and alerts Max and Benno to their situation. However their getaway is cut short due to the malfunctioning car, and the situation deteriorates from there.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: She fires at the approaching biker gang at almost point blank range with her shotgun and fails to connect with any of them.
- Never Mess with Granny: When Toecutter's gang hold Sprog hostage, May turns up with a shotgun and makes them all back off into a storage room.
- Small Girl, Big Gun: Her shotgun is bigger than she is.
- You Shall Not Pass!: She tries this with the bikers when the car breaks down to try and save Jessie and Sprog, but it doesn't work because she has only one shotgun shell left and she misses with it.
Roop and Charlie
- Played by: Steve Millichamp and John Ley
- Captain Crash: They repeatedly crash their car in the opening chase.
- Fat Bastard: Downplayed with the hefty Roop. He's a heroic character, but he's abrasive toward his partner, shows a bit of Rabid Cop sentiment while pursuing a Cop Killer, and is The Peeping Tom.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Roop can be a bit of a dick to Charlie, his pursuit of criminals seems more due to Blood Knight tendencies than professionalism or altruism, and he gets his partner badly injured by insisting on continuing the chase. But when the Goose is burned nearly to death he seems genuinely concerned and furious.
- Lawman Go Bad: According to a tie-in comic for Mad Max: Fury Road states they ended up joining Immortan Joe's army after civilization collapsed.
- Machine Monotone: Charlie needs an electro larynx to speak after his throat is injured in the opening chase, causing him to speak with an odd monotone.
- No Healthcare in the Apocalypse: Oddly averted with Charlie and his electro larynx. While it's not technically After the End just yet, they're in the middle of nowhere during a Post-Peak Oil collapse, and considering the lack of resources for the MFP and pretty much everything else, being able to get something this expensive is pretty surprising.
- Real Men Love Jesus: Charlie is a member of an elite police unit and criticizes his partner for blaspheming.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Charlie spends a lot of the opening chase muttering about how much trouble they're in after they get into a collision with a van that was obeying traffic laws.
- Those Two Guys: They share their screen-time and provide some comic relief, mainly due to their differing personalties.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: They vanish without explanation in the final act, although a Deleted Scene has them get killed by Toecutter and a Schrödinger's Canon comic has them become marauders after the final fall of society. A man resembling Charlie is also seen as a prisoner in Bartertown during the third film.
