Running On Empty

The shape of this eccentric film made by the Film Corporation of West Australia but set in New South Wales, seems to have resulted from crossing Rebel Without A Cause (1955) with Two Lane Blacktop (1971) and adding a touch of Mad Max (1979).

Centered around the character of Mike (Terry Serio) and his girlfriend, Julie (Deborah Conway), who are involved in an illegal street-racing scene, we get treated to a mash-upof post-teen romance, gawd-awful '80s fashion, spectacular car crashes, leering louts, bare-breasted skinny chicks, repressed homosexuality and '50s rock n'roll. It's in no way dramatically satisfying but it has an appealing vernacular rawness. a quality that has given it certain cult cachet, the cinematography by David Gribble is excellent, particularly in the country scenes, which capture the Australian blue and gold with a near hyper-real clarity and the stunts are well-done for their day.

Aside from his character as written, Max Cullen's turn as Rebel, a blind mechanic and self-styled philosopher of the zen of road-racing is ludicrous, if not downright embarrassing. Pop chanteuse Deb Conway who, despite a brief singing appearance in Peter Greenaway's Prospero's Books, rightly concluded that her future was not in film, bad as her wardrobe was,should have kept on what she had on. Fortunately for her, success was not far off with the band Do Re Mi and their1985 song 'Man Overboard'.

Had this film not been such a dog's dinner of semi-exploiationism, Terry Serio, who like Conway, also fronted pop bands (in his case The Elks, although they never had chart success) might have gone on to be another Mel Gibson. As it was, he stumbled through a few more unsuccessful features and turns up occasionally in local TV dramas. The film was released as Fast Lane Fever in America where the street car fraternity apparently took it seriously.

 

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