THESE FINAL HOURS - Friday 1st August 2014

What would you do if you knew that your future didn't extend beyond the next 12 hours? What would you do if it were your last day on Earth? What would you do if you knew that everyone you know, all you own, everyone and everything you care about, and everything about your very existence were to be destroyed by the end of today by a cataclysmic event? This is the big question and the central premise upon which new Australian film - 'THESE FINAL HOURS' is based, and this little low budget offering would rank as one of the best Australian films in recent years!

I saw this yesterday, and make no mistake - this is not your mega budget effects laden Hollywood epic end-of-the-world telling the like of which we have seen in 'Armageddon', 'The Day After Tomorrow', '2012', 'Deep Impact', 'The Core' and more!. This film is so much more grounded than the Michael Bay, Roland Emmerich actioners we have been fed in the past, and surrounds ordinary Western Australian folk who know that the end is coming, and there is no escape - the world will end and everyone and everything will be destroyed in 12 short hours from now!

As the film opens we see an asteroid within Earth's atmosphere hurtling ever closer, and we know as a lone voice narrates through the film on AM radio (a convincing and pragmatic David Field) that the point of contact is the northern Atlantic Ocean. With Perth and its surrounding suburbs as the backdrop to this story, we are introduced to James (Nathan Phillips) and girlfriend Zoe (Jessica De Gouw) who contemplate their final hours - she wants to remain at the beach house where they have spent the night, as it is here where she holidayed as a child and where she wants to die when the end comes. James is intent of partying hard and ensuring that when the end comes he is so numb from drugs and alcohol that he won't be able to feel the pain. And so James leaves for destination party! He drives through Perth's suburbs - large houses, wide streets, clear blue skies, but in the distance the tall towers of Perth's CBD are alight and billowing smoke, the street scape is littered with burnt out cars, garbage bins are overturned, there is a corpse hanging from a lamp-post, messages have been spray pained to cars and houses - there is wanton destruction at almost every turn and random acts of murder in the street!

Having to abandon his car to save his own life from a crazed machete wielding madman he strays upon two guys who have abducted young girl Rose (Angourie Rice), have her locked up and seem to be intent on having their way with her later on. Hearing Rose scream he enters the house armed with a hammer, a fight ensues, and fortunately for Rose James emerges victorious. Rose has become lost from her father whom she is desperate to reunite with so that they can be together at the end. James just wants to party, get stoned, get drunk and get laid, but, he reluctantly agrees to take Rose to where she thinks her father will be. All the while the clock is ticking down as the voice on the AM radio tells us that Europe, the eastern United States and western Africa have been wiped out - destroyed - gone!

We are further advised as the story unfolds that the resultant fire storm created by the impact will peel away the Earths crust like an orange, and nothing will survive. There is no escaping this impending disaster -  there are no soaring Presidential speeches to stir the citizens into some kind of defencive action, nations do not unite in the face of their common emergency, science will not prevail, God will not intervene, and there are no marauding intergalactic aliens that have delivered this misery upon our fair green planet!

As the day progresses an unlikely friendship develops between James and Rose as they travel from point to point in search of her father, along the way taking in the house where his sister and family live and then his mother. Everywhere they go they encounter more death, destruction, violence, suicide, and debauchery as life no longer for these short hours that remain has any consequence, or meaning. They make it to party central hosted by his good mate Freddy (Daniel Henshall) but this is not all that it's cracked up to be as James tussles with his new found responsibility to Rose who still remains separated from her father. Several roadblocks arise at this party to end all parties which James has to navigate so he and Rose can exit safely - and as the hour approaches and we learn from the lone radio broadcaster that Africa has gone, as has most of Asia now, James and Rose make it to where her father and family should be, but here too all is not quite what it seems and Rose has to come to terms with some awful truths. James leaves - not though to return to party central but to reunite with his previously abandoned love Zoe.

This film is grim, dark, harrowing, brutal and poignant all at once. For a small budget Australian take on the end of the world apocalypse, the performances are solid, the effects whilst used sparingly are handled with a deft touch, and the story resonates and will make you think long after the credits have rolled - as it has with me! When ordinary folk are confronted with extraordinary circumstances and there are no longer any responsibilities, accountabilities, consequences or repercussions for your actions, how would live out your last 12 hours? Think about that one!

  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-