Running on Empty

Enjoyable fun focused on Australian petrolheads racing their hotted up cars.

There are some great cars seen, several well shot race sequences, many spectacular driving stunts, and some beautifully shot scenery. The widescreen format is well used.

Of interest is the 1980s New Wave fashion and hairstyles. That part was really cool.

The script is OK but pretty thin and a bit clunky. Terry Serio in the lead is pretty good. Vangelis Mourikis (Tony) gives a good performance... and has some cool costumes. Deborah Conway looks great and has screen presence but her acting isn't the best. Maybe they should have had her sing a couple of songs instead of talking?

Plenty of very recognisable Australian actors appear in support roles so it is fun spotting them.

This film has a cult following among the modified car community here in Oz. It may not be the best acting or story line but that is all part of the appeal. Even Rocky Horror Picture Show was a HUGE flop when first released, even MADMAX had to use a different name in the states, The Road Warrior. Sure it's got tacky lines in funny voices from Max Cullen, "green, green is nice" i'm sure would be said once somewhere in Australia every Saturday night by a "pervert car freak deviate"

Once you've seen it you will never forget:

"Whats ya name?"

"Piss off!"

"Piss off? What type of a name is that?"

"Its polish. Pissov's a Polish name!"

"OK sheryl, getcha gear off"

"not now Ram, ya so slow"

"a polak and a spag! what are ya trying to do? lower housing prices!"

mike - "she still snatches in second"

tony - "yeah, i know"

mike - "she winds up ok, but,,, i'm just loosing too much on the changes"

tony - "yeah , you would do"

mike - "yeah,,, so waddaya reckon?"

tony - "she still snatches in second"

mike - "yeah that just could be it!!!"

For those of you out there who have seen this pic on VHS, I would recommend the DVD. In fact the VHS is utter rubbish. The main reason is that the film was shot widescreen (2.55:1) and the producers ran out of money making the VHS version and released it as 4:3. The result is that several actors are not on screen at all, and in many drag races, less than half the cars are showing since one is on each side of the screen. The DVD is actually a reasonable version of the film.

A lot of the best scenes in the film were cut before the final release. They were viewed as being too offensive to minority groups. In fact the prospect of a US release caused even more cuts in the film. For example, the Americans reputedly did not understand words such as Petrol & Strides.

Mike's dad and mum were meant to be hippies. The dad survives in the film as a wasted dope smoking guitarist. But the following scene with the mum was cut. The scene took place in the roof space of the house which was lined with aluminium foil, fluoro lights and filled with plants... you get the picture. The producers had rounded up a lot of real plants for the foreground and when they saw the result on the big sheet, they freaked and the scene was cut. Cowards!

Yes, the film is noted as an Australian cult classic. Voted #2 in Street machines best 100 films of all time, narrowly missing out to Mad Max ll. The latter had over 10 times the budget of ROE. In fact the budget on ROE was so small that the director could not afford to wreck any of the cars... even though there would have been a public outcry if anyone had wrecked a real HO. (compare that with Smoky and the Bandit or Blues Bros where dozens of cars were wrecked.)

So there's one real GTHO and two fakes. One of the fakes was bought from the local indigenous community in Cobar after the standby GTHO crashed into the back of the Country Boy's truck. (That was unscripted! The car was meant to burst out from the side of the truck.) Because the budget was so tight, the car was made up with ordinary brown masking tape instead of the painted on gold trim of the real thing.

The 55 chev is absolutely real. The car began as a very plain 4 door and was brilliantly and quickly converted to the blown '55 in the film. The motor was a marinised 545 which made around 1000 bhp. This was reduced to around 600 for the filming. The car was able to easily to 170 mph as show in several scenes in the film.

Just for the record, anyone with $12,000 could have picked up ALL the cars after the film. The HO, the Dodge, the '53 Ute, Rammer's 53 Chev... the lot. Wonder where they are now?

SW

This is one of my all time favourite movies, if ur not into cars then forget it!! This movie features 1 of Aussies greatest muscle cars, the XYGTHO. Yeah so the acting not the greatest - it was never made to win an oscar. The car action will keep you comin back for more and more. There is a cool collection of muscle cars from the 70's and an Awesome '57 Chev - with a real cool cat drivin it! Also there is a really cool song sung by Terry Serio the main actor. The acting is pretty funny when taken lightly, but the tyre smokin and drag racing is the main focus in this movie. Big fast cars with pleantly of steel(NO PLASTIC CARS), and some cool street dragging. I recommend it only to people that are into cars and not someone looking for great acting.

Its only been recently released on DVD here in Australia.Prior to this only available on VHS video. A very good friend of mine personally knows the guy who owns the red Ford Falcon GTHO used in the movie....not the the car they mocked up which crashed,caught fire and then had its roof ripped off. It helps if you were of age or close to it when the film was made so you can relate to the whole car culture thing here back then. Seems a bit corny now but always enjoyable to watch. Note...worth going into slow mode close the end after "Fox" loses to the 1957 blown black Chev and and its interesting how this scene was staged and which car didn't blow up when it didn't hit the wall but a substitute car parked away from the wall and blown up..... God i love DVD.