(1982)
3
Donald Guarisco
It's tempting to look at Battletruck as a ripoff of The Road Warrior but this isn't true (the two films were made concurrently, with neither set of filmmakers knowing what the other was doing). However, both films use the same raw Western-derived narrative elements - a stoic outcast hero, a thuggish band of outlaws, a town that needs protecting and a dramatic showdown finale in which the outcast hero and the town put aside their differences to work together. Unfortunately, Battletruck is the less interesting of these two films. Harley Cokliss uses the New Zealand landscape to atmospheric effect (the cinematography by Chris Menges has some dazzling moments) and handles action well but the script's pedestrian, sometimes dull take on its familiar elements holds it back. Also, the performances are of variable quality: Michael Beck makes a solid loner hero and James Wainwright underplays nicely as the quietly menacing villain while Annie McEnroe offers a weak, sometimes terrible performance as the mystery woman who drives the plot and Bruno Lawrence's mugging as a villainous lackey is a distraction. In short, Battletruck is too familiar and too mixed in its quality to stand out from the pack of 1980's post-apocalyptic action fare.
Battletruck on AllMovie
Battletruck (1982)
