Mad Dog Morgan (1976)

Mad Dog Morgan (1976)
written by Phillip Mora
directed by Phillip Mora

"Best Ozploitation film ever"

Best austrailian flick on the 70's"

A few Random quotes that made me wonder, did these people watch the same film...or at least take in consideration Nicholas Roeg's "Walkabout" before making rash generalizations?

That's life, oh... (spoiler alert... i'm that kind of douche today)

That isn't to say Mad Dog Morgan, boosting a blistering performance by Dennis Hopper is not worth its grain of sand, quite the contrary this is a good film, in all of its unintentional badness. Lets get a couple formalities out of the way, Mad Dog Morgan is about a Irish settler in pre-20th century Austrailia, his farm with his fellow settlers are harvested by Chinese brought over, for some reason Austrailians don't take kindly to the Chinese and massacre the whole lot. Out of his group Mad Dog is the only one left, gets away and gets arrested. In prison he is branded, tortured, raped and beaten, getting off with good behavior. When he leaves he kind of is like a catatonic insane Robin Hood, stealing from anybody with money. He soon becomes the most wanted man in Austrailia, manuevering effortlessly out of the sight of the Law and making him a national moniker of kindness, seeing he only kills those who wronged him. They end up tracking him down and an itchy trigger finger police official shoots him in the neck, he dies and Senior officer wants his beard and scrotum. The end.

Hope I didn't ruin anything.

The new edition released from Troma video boasts the extended graphic violence never before seen in America, lucky me, I don't feel like any of it is present. What is, is a gorgeously flawed movie, filled with inept editing, bad music cues, awkward performances, and fucking amazing cinematography. A little clean up work could've been done to preserve some of the finer moments in the film, but really this is Dennis Hopper's show. Proving once and for all why many of his passion projects stayed on the unfilmed list; as much as I like the man, he can play a great villain "Blue Velvet', 'Speed', and 'Paris Trout', but in this, director Phillip Mora seems to be unable to corral the highly volatile actor. In every scene Hopper as Mad Dog switches up accents, has a ridiculous looking beard ( i want one) and mutters incessantly to himself. Its a wonderful flick to behold.

This is an exploitation movie all the way, with a rather shocking back of the head exploding out the front scene and loads of inconsistent actors. A few of Australian regulars walk across the screen always nice to see actor Bruce Spence turn up and inexplicably get shot. Which in turn is one of the best sequences in the movie, Dennis Hopper drunk and wild yells "Who shot at me?" over and over telling everyone to shut up, as he's the only one who fired his gun. The editing is piss poor, never relaxing enough to enjoy a nice scene of exposition, instead the flick rifles through scene after scene until its at the end and the credits roll.

As much fun as this flick is, wild and unpredictable chemistry between no one and every one, it'd be a wonder what a film maker like Terrence Mallick or Michael Cinimo would've done with this. My first impressions was I was going to watch an Aussie version of "Jeremiah Johnson"... no, no it was nothing like that... at all.

For Troma elitist, this is one of the better releases, this new Tromasterpiece collections does have my panties wedged tightly up in dis bitch, and I loved Mad Dog Morgan, in all of its juvenile glory. A premature load of hooten-nanny with performance by Dennis Hopper that is as close to any live characterization of Yosemite Sam with a back glow of rich Australian wildlife.

call it collect, but call it today indeed!