Mad Max (George Miller, 1979)

Mad Max is a cult road movie fatally crippled by budget and imagination. Set in the near-future, the viewer is told that society is on the verge of collapse, as oil shortages turn biker gangs into killers as legal and judicial systems crumble.

For all its potential, Mad Max seldom achieves its targets. As an exploitation film it's not particularly exploitative, as an action movie it's dull as dirt. It sows the seeds of a fascinating story about the breakdown of society, and while it hits a beat now and then, long stretches are as dull and grey as the film's endless motorways.

Made on a shoestring budget, it has little to recommend it from a visual standpoint. A couple of practical stunts impress, in particular a slow-motion bike crash which understandably created urban myths about the death of the stuntman. And Australia itself is a reliably huge and gorgeous stage to set the action.

Mad Max hits its highest point in the last five minutes, as Max, finally mad, sadistically takes down the last members of the gang that killed his family. But just as it feels like the film proper is finally starting, it's all over. The sequels created their own radical mythology, but as part of a trilogy the first film, under-developed and unrealised, is not what it should have, nor could have been.

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Die Hard 2 (Renny Harlin, 1990)

Spirited if misguided attempt at improving the original by ramping up the action, threat and scope of the story, destroying in the process much of what made the first one great. A film clearly far too ambitious for the writers and directors who worked on it, Die Hard 2 is sprawling, aimless and full of hundreds of screeching unsympathetic minor characters. This time we find Detective John McClane battling a confused mix of military, mercanery and drug lord against the admittedly atmospheric background of a Christmas-time Dulles International Airport. The tense stand-offs of the first film are replaced with countless nonsensical overlong gun battles, the unique locations with huts and tunnels and the charasmatic villains with silly action figures. A few clever moments and pretty snowscapes raise the film now and then, but it's never more than a minute or two away from its noisy, clumsy roots.

Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)

Extremely effective, genuinely tense and intelligently constructed serial killer film, elevated way above the norm by Michael Mann's elegant direction, a strong cast, gorgeous photography and a moodily evocative synthesised soundtrack. Sensibly reigning in the more over-the-top moments of Thomas Harris' original novel, Manhunter is far more than the sum of its parts; managaing to be chilling, haunting, funny and thrilling by turn, succeeding everywhere the increasingly cynical and ridiculous sequels/remakes failed to do.

Phone Me If You're Bored (Aidan Smith and his Indulgent Friends, 2014)

Aidan Smith is back, Indulgent Friends in tow, for another slipshod, ramshackle excursion into love, loss and absurdity.

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