These Final Hours |
Australia • 2013 • 87m •
  • Directed by: Zak Hilditch. • Starring: Jessica De Gouw, Nathan Phillips, David Field, Lauren Cleary, Matt Lovkis, Ryan Knight, Brendan Kalin, Wendy Burns, Caleb Helm, Emily Crew, Aron Dyer, Neil Stewart, Peter Docker. • Music by: Cornel Wilczek.      It's the last day on earth, twelve hours before a cataclysmic event will end life as we know it. James makes his way across a lawless and chaotic city to the party to end all parties. Along the way, he somewhat reluctantly saves the life of a little girl named Rose who is desperately searching for her father. Stuck with the unexpected burden of responsibility, James is forced to come to terms with what really matters in life as the final hours tick away.
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Review:
The Aussies enjoy their films like their drinks: strong. If you reveled in the sheer brutality of Wolf Creek, you'll like this. Redemption comes at a very painful price, and there's no science unit saving the day. I've always been convinced that the end of the world would showcase our worst, not our best; without any rules or limits, human nature is on full display: rape, murder, hedonism, selfishness, emptiness, abandonment - the revolting core of what we are. There's little good available here, and rightly so. The backstory is deliberately left out, and you can only assume that's because of the low-budget; wise storytellers know that when you don't have the cash, the smartest thing to do is focus on the human elements and use the ambiguity to heighten the mystery.
Ultimately, apocalyptic tales are about our powerlessness to stop them, and our nightmare- ish vulnerability. Hollywood, of course, has to placate the American public with a happy ending where NASA saves the day just-in-time, which negates the most dramatic part of the staging - we are not in control, nature is our destroyer, and the scariest thing is running out of options into unavoidable submission - that our favorite Beverly Hills capitalists cowardly abscond from. The drama is in the unfolding and inevitable tragedy, not childish Exceptionalism.
The film, in my view, is about fatherhood: the protagonist knows the girl he actually loves - but has abandoned - is pregnant, and it's a fascinating coming-of-age scenario that's bleak, dark, and as punchy as it gets. The sweltering heat only gets hotter, and you can almost feel the acrid, sweaty claustrophobia get worse and worse (never felt the Aussie sun, but apparently it's nasty and gets you good). Ironically, the filmmakers seemed to have set out to pin one story (e.g. redemption from selfishness), yet touched on other, more salient, themes instead: dignity in death, abandonment of morality, the sheer terror of the natural phenomena, and more. And the fact that the girl is more affected that he left her to die alone than her impending immolation, speaks volumes for the emotional depth of what's going on - when we're facing the end, all any of us are going to care about is who we love, and whether they are with us. The question art of all forms needs to ask is, -- why, if we're just apes? Are love, morality, justice, etc, transcendent by nature, and what happens when we are stripped down to what we are?
A solid flick that asks tough questions with wonderful Aussie forthrightness. And if Perth really even gets Armageddon 10hrs late, i'm bringing bottled water.
Review by azcoppen from the Internet Movie Database.
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