Miracle Mile

I first saw this movie on video around the time it was produced. I immediately liked it even though it was a bit bleak. But the late 80's were full of apocalyptic nuclear holocaust movies and this was the only one that stayed with me. Now, years later, I've just rewatched it (this time on DVD) and I still think it's a very good -- but not great -- movie.

Admittedly, there's some over-the-top 80's haircuts and costumes, stuff that would be seriously 'retro' nowadays. And the acting, particularly in the beginning, is 'obvious' and a bit tiring. But when the hero receives that fateful phone call, it all changes. Suddenly, it's like watching a stage-performance of a play, a pressure-cooker where everyone suspects everyone else and no one knows what's really going on.

In fact, one of the best parts of the screenplay is that we, the audience, also don't really know what to believe (until the very end). We watch the hero struggle with what to tell people who's help he needs: if he tells them the awful truth, they may not believe/help him; if he tells them a more believable lie, is he denying them the chance to survive or at least to die with their loved ones. Either way, both he and the people he meets turn to progressively more and more extreme behavior -- people die! . . . and what if it all turns-out to have been a hoax?

In all, I think this movie ranks as a great sci-fi film, and in the truest sense of the genre: What If. It's not about aliens or galactic empires or anything else that's more fantasy than reality. Instead, it's a situation that any of us could easily imagine and I think this is why it stayed with me all these years, why it now forms a part of the framework for my imagination whenever I find myself catastrophizing about terrorism or natural disaster, anything that could separate me from the ones I love. What would I do?

So, at first, Miracle Mile doesn't appear to be anything that special. Harry (Anthony Edwards) meets Julie (Mare Winningham) and things seem to go along well. But then he misses their date and happens to answer the payphone next to the diner. And from thereon out the film is pure bonkers.

Miracle Mile is the very definition of why you should see movies outside the mainstream media. Its premise is pure madness, its actors are relatively unknown, you won't have heard of anything its director has done. And yet it's one of the most profound films to have come out of the 80s.

Miracle Mile takes a fairly typical apocalypse setting and milks every single possible drop of drama out of it. It focuses on a single individual and their struggle to comprehend the unthinkable.

Definitely not something that could win over mainstream audiences. It's too focused, too out there, to win over audiences.

But for those of us that can see the shape of the forest for the trees, this is something special.

This is a find I will treasure, all the more because it's flawed. It has a plain TV-look and seems pretty straightforward, nothing that will pass muster for Criterion certainly, but if we learn to detach ourselves from aesthetic preoccupation and focus on meaning, we'll find it in the most inconpicuous of places. Such as here.

Imagine a fairy-tale fantasy about a man, who having stood up the one-in-a-million' girlfriend he just met, imagines a scenario of apocalyptic destruction that will permit him to redeem himself in her eyes and become the savior. When he rushes into her apartment to pick her up she is sleeping, a sleeping beauty and he the prince charming.

Now imagine this planted inside a world of chaotic synchronicity, the Los Angeles, nuclear-paranoid version of After Hours. Like the Scorsese film, this unfolds as latenight chance encounters - except at the doorstep of the end of the world. Lovely LA streets, empty, beckoning us to travel. Empty architecture, kitsch (the burger joint) or futuristic (the apartment high-rises). Clean looks, but things are delightfully askew. A gun-totting man walks into a gym and yells at a crowd of lycra and spandex that he needs a helicopter pilot (and finds one).

Better yet, consider this. The film starts with TV footage about the creation of life from the Bang onwards. Evident is a plan, a structure that births from nothing intelligent life. The actual story begins with the man finding perfect love, the soulmate that completes into one. This rare moment of attaining perfect balance in life, the rest of the film progressively assaults by showing how entropy and chaos foil the plan. There is no plan. Except it all begins with the man setting in motion the entire story of destruction, karmic or a deeper instinct of destrudo that overpowers the desire to love. Makers of our own fate.

Here the film falters, in the finale. The apocalyptic vision of an entire city in the grip of bloody frenzy is one of the most potent, better than most zombie films about the end of times ever achieved, but it ends the way it does. It's so strong it threatens to swallow everything into its black hole.

Others might like this last part more. Whatever you do, this is a sleeper you can't afford to miss. Criterion will not do the work for you on this one, this you have to seek out.

The thing that makes this movie particularly effective is that it feels just like a dream. I've had nuclear holocaust dreams all my life, and when I watched this movie I felt like I was dreaming. I really connected emotionally with the main character. He's a nerd who has suddenly met the girl of his dreams, a nerdy, cute girl with glasses and a sweet demeanor, and at that precise moment the world appears as if it is going to come to an end! And he's not going to get a chance to even kiss her before the world goes poof! hey, it's bad enough to die, but to die with an unfulfilled love is truly nightmarish!

The movie is not exactly illogical, but follows a sort of dream logic, where things just get worse and worse, relentlessly, and the harder you try to run away, the slower you move. The ending is devastating, horrifying and heart warming all at the same time.

After seeing this movie for the first time I shivered for hours, and couldn't bring myself to watch it again for 12 years! Its not that I didn't like it, I just knew that if I saw it again I would lose that special thrilling fear that it instilled in me. But it was so powerful that when i did see it 12 years later I remembered every plot, every character and event. On one viewing it imprinted itself on my brain, which movies hardly ever do.

See it! And see it late at night in a dark room!

cb

*click*

As the phone went dead, my heart almost stopped as I watched Harry's expression.

I have known of this obscure thriller for years, and it gets better every time I see it.

'Miracle Mile' is an apocalyptic classic. As many other user comments have indicated, the film portrays mass hysteria and panic due to an impending nuclear attack. At first only Harry (Anthony Edwards) knows about it, and then tells a handful of citizens with such urgency that they have no choice but to believe him. From there the word spreads gradually, and impending doom really sets in. The streets break out into riots, and people just go absolutely nuts. All this while, Harry and his girlfriend Julie and desperately trying to get to a helicopter platform so they can escape to the extreme north. Problem is, many others have that idea as well.

Sounds a bit far-fetched? Perhaps, but the film's anticipation never seems to let up. This is an extremely enjoyable film that makes you think of your own immediate values. I mean, what WOULD you do in that situation? Would you just sit and wait for it? or would you (attempt to) flee? After viewing this film, you ask yourself these questions.

A forgotten gem that deserves the full anamorphic DVD treatment. It's an 80's movie, so it's not without it's corny moments and the somewhat cheesy format. But these things don't really matter as the film portrays panic so perfectly. If such an event (god forbid) was to actually occur, I believe the chaos on the streets would look just like the film.

I've seen some very negative comments on the film, and everyone is entitled to an opinion. But what can I say? I consider this a classic of sorts.

9/10