The Chain Reaction (1980)

"The Chain Reaction" immediately looked like a genuine winner for me, as I have a natural born fondness for disaster themed movies and – especially since seeing the awesome documentary "Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!" – outrageous Australian cult cinema. This movie combines the two with a story revolving on nuclear contamination (and of course the complimentary corporate cover-up) filmed and released during the late 70's/early 80's when Aussie's horror and cult culture was in the middle of it development. "The Chain Reaction" has several direct links with what's inarguably Australia's greatest cult milestone ever made; the still incredibly amazing "Mad Max". The couple of car chases are obviously borrowed, in the hope to become as successful, and the cast and crew features several familiar names. Lead star Steve Bisley played Max Rockatansky's partner Goose and there's also an important role for Hugh Keays-Byrne, who played the notorious villain Toecutter. Apparently even Mel Gibson himself very briefly appears in the film, as an anonymous bearded mechanic, but he must have been very well disguised as I didn't even notice him. Last but not least, George Miller is credited as associate producer but undoubtedly also helped writer/director Ian Berry a lot with his fist long-feature film. Unfortunately, however, "The Chain Reaction" isn't as awesome as I hoped or as it easily could have been. The film provides enough thrills and entertainment for as long as the emphasis remains on action, but as soon as it's necessary for the scenario to create more depth and slowly begin to work towards a gratifying conclusion, the whole set-up tumbles down and becomes lamentable. The opening sequences are hugely compelling and eerie, albeit not too plausible. When an earthquake strikes in the Australian outback, Waldo Nuclear power plant engineer Heinrich Schmidt is lethally exposed to radioactive material but nevertheless insists to warn the public about a leakage. His superiors want to prevent this from happening of course, those bastards, but Heinrich escapes and with his last strengths manages to reach a small town before collapsing. Robust macho car mechanic Larry Stillson and his beautiful nurse wife Carmel take the exhausted and amnesiac Heinrich into their cabin and thus become involved in the deadly Waldo cover-up conspiracy. The opening sequences at the nuclear plant, Heinrich's escape and Larry's first encounter with the Waldo goons – resulting in a high adrenalin car chase that even causes tires to screech on a dirt road – are vastly exhilarating. The whole story around the slowly recovering Heinrich Schmidt, on the other hand, is largely unnecessary and rather awkward. We already know that Schmidt narrowly survived nuclear radiation and that the local water supply is contaminated, so his flashbacks and slow memory recovery are redundant. Also, unlike as in the epitome film "The China Syndrome", "The Chain Reaction" does not seem very interested in the political aspects of nuclear cover-up conspiracies. The Waldo Plant über-tycoon is more interested in personally eliminating Larry and C° than in saving his own reputation. That's the Aussie villain mentality for you! Overall, this is a decent and fun flick as long as you don't pay too much attention to content and logic. Subtitles on the DVD would have been nice as well, as the Aussie outback accents are often difficult to understand.

I saw this at the drive in when it was released, but cant find it these days on DVD, I have fond memories of this film, but am afraid it was another Houseboat Horror!!!! Am I wrong?The worst part is I cant remember Steve Bisley in this film, sorry Steve! Then again, it may have something to do with the girl I was at the drive in with on this particular night!What really astounded me at the time was the fact that we (Australians), were starting to make films finally that were not about colonial times, or period drama, but films that were truly able to be considered international, in that they really could have been made anywhere, this was an incredible break through.

Selfless, compassionate German scientist Heinrich (a deeply sympathetic Ross Thompson), an employee for the nefarious multi-international nuclear power company WALDO, gets fatally contaminated by a radiation leak at one of WALDO's storage facilities in Central Australia. Heinrich escapes from WALDO's pernicious clutches and goes on the lam so he can warn the outside world about the potentially catastrophic repercussions of the toxic spill. Heinrich, slowly dying and suffering from amnesia, seeks shelter and protection from cocky race car driver Larry (the ruggedly likable Steve Bisley) and his caring nurse wife Carol (a wonderfully radiant performance by the leggy, strikingly gorgeous blonde knockout Anna-Maria Winchester). A bunch of WALDO agents, determined to cover up the disaster, relentlessly track Heinrich and the couple down.Basically "The China Syndrome" crossed with a tense, pacy, scarily plausible and tautly streamlined high octane car chase/conspiracy thriller, this extremely exciting and skillfully executed little dilly promptly hurdles along under Ian Barry's firm, strongly focused direction (Barry also wrote the terse, topical, tightly wound script). Russell Boyd's smoothly prowling, polished, often kinetic cinematography, Andrew Thomas Wilson's tinny, noodling, spooky'n'shivery synthesizer score, the shocking brutality of WALDO's corporate goons, the snappy, lightning swift tempo, the cold, gloomy, chilling tone, stunning shots of guys in gleaming white decontamination suits grimly going about their business, the despairing hopelessness of the pitiable Heinrich's wretched plight, and the harsh corporate ruthlessness that the evil, amoral WALDO embodies stoke the film's wired, ambient paranoia to a stirringly high temperature, therefor making for a most excellent and suspenseful nail-biter. Several folks involved with "Mad Max" pop up here: George Miller was an associate producer, Hugh "The Toecutter" Keys-Byrne plays a sadistic WALDO thug, and both Roger Ward and an unshaven Mel Gibson cameo as yahoo mechanics. The heart-pounding, pulse-quickening, blow-the-wheels-off-that-sucker spectacular climactic car chase will make your teeth rattle. A frightfully credible depiction of a disturbingly possible scientific reality.

I saw this movie at the Roxy Cinema,Parramatta, Sydney Australia in 1980. I thought the action stunts and story were good. Steve Bisley who played Goose in "Mad Max" in one of his early lead roles. Watch out for Mel Gibson in an unbilled role as a mechanic at the beginning of the film.