Opiniones de usuarios

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.

I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic movies; for some reason, the thought of civilization as we know it grinding to a halt on a backdrop of nuclear bombs falling intrigues me to no end.

There are a host of movies that deal with Life After The Bomb, a whole lot more dealing with Life While Preventing The Bomb, but not very many that deal with Life Immediately Before The Bomb. This is one of the latter, and I think it pulls it off really well.

This offbeat movie chronicles a few hours in the life of a character who has just found out that the missiles are on the way.

This movie is rather offbeat; the acting is not bad, but just unlike normal hollywood acting, even despite a few familiar faces. The pacing is different, the sets are different, the colors are different. And in this case, the differences give it an edge that is quite intriguing.

The main character (tom cruise's ill-fated co-pilot in top gun) displays such an acute, personal anxiety that really grabbed my attention and really made the movie hit home.

While some of the other acting is less than stellar, in a movie like this it does not detract.

This movie really did make me think about what I would do in a similar situation. Very thought-provoking.

If you are as intriguied by nuclear war as I am, you should definitely watch this film.

8 / 10

Hello there,

You're definitely interested in this movie if you've got this far on the IMDB...

If you're, like me, a child of the 80's (teenager in the 80's) who saw this movie in the cinema's with that great soundtrack from "Tangerin Dream" in it(in the middle of the cold war),than you really are going to like this movie... I was able to track down this movie on PAL VHS-Tape on Ebay(you can buy it on DVD now,zone 1 only) and saw it last night on my own again. Ok,I'll have to admit that it's dated now (look at the clothes...)but that same sad feeling that creeps slowly into your head while watching this movie is still there! I really hope with the whole of my heart that we never,and I say NEVER,have to witness the day that our chosen leaders make the same stupid mistake of launching a nuclear attack on a country like they do in this movie... This is not your typical big budget,special effects loaded action-vehicle about a full-on nuclear strike but a modest little movie about what happens to a small bunch of people that finds out by accident that their country (USA) has launched a nuclear attack against another unspecified country and are getting back what they've started....

If you have your heart at the right place,then this movie grabs you by the throat and won't let go...

On the other handiIf you ONLY like comedy's and big budget action movies(which I also like very much)then you're probably going to despise this one...

Go now and find this little gem of a movie,I know you want to...

Cheers,

Dirk

*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

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?

Stylistically unique examination of a concentrated cross-section of humanity's real-time reaction to the (potential?) prologue to the apocalypse. Swings effortlessly from quirky to grounded, sweet to severe, & hopeful to bleak. #nitrosMovieChallenge.

This movie digs down deep into dream logic. Characters make bizarre choices, the stakes go from 0-60 in no time flat. And the tone! It moves from Rom-com to "After Hours" dark humour to serious dread. I saw this with an audience and we had strong vocal reactions to the movie's "convenient" contrivances. (Denise Crosby seems to be dropped in from another movie to deliver high powered info and to get the plot moving. What is she doing in this diner at 4am?) Follow up question: Why is the 24hour gym having aerobics classes at 4:45 am? I must admit, though, I wasn't bored. The movie doubled down on the premise and steered into the crazy. I think it's going to stick with me.

In Los Angeles, when the musician Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) meets Julie Peters (Mare Winningham) in the museum, he immediately falls in love with her. They schedule a date late night in Miracle Mile, but the alarm clock fails and Harry misses the date and he arrives three and a half hours late. Harry accidentally hears a mistaken phone call and a man tells that the United State has just started a nuclear war sending missiles against Soviet Union and in two hours Los Angeles would be hit by the enemy back missiles. Harry seeks out Julie and frantically tries to find a helicopter pilot to leave Los Angeles. Meanwhile the rumor is spread out and brings chaos to the city.

Today I have watched the cult "Miracle Mile" maybe for the sixth time and despite being dated in the present days with the end of the Cold War, it still impresses how a rumor can be so destructive. The frantic and nightmarish story of a young man that discovers that Los Angeles will go into a meltdown in about two hours has the pace of "After Hours" of 1985. The haunting music score of Tangerine Dream fits perfectly to the apocalyptical screenplay of this unforgettable unique film. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Miracle Mile"

Note: On 30 January 2021, I saw this film again.

9/10 - A Tense, Underrated Masterpiece of 1980s Cinema

Miracle Mile (1988) is a hidden gem of 1980s filmmaking, blending romance, suspense, and apocalyptic dread into an unforgettable cinematic experience. Directed by Steve De Jarnatt, the film delivers a hauntingly original narrative that hooks you from the first moment and doesn't let go until its devastating conclusion.

Anthony Edwards shines as Harry Washello, a lovable everyman who finds himself caught in an unimaginable situation after a chance phone call informs him of an impending nuclear strike. Edwards masterfully conveys Harry's desperation and determination as he races against time to save Julie, played with warmth and vulnerability by Mare Winningham. Their chemistry makes the story's emotional stakes feel real and immediate.

What sets Miracle Mile apart is its tonal balance. The film seamlessly transitions from romantic whimsy to nail-biting suspense and, ultimately, existential horror. The pacing is pitch-perfect, escalating tension with every passing moment while maintaining a human core that keeps the audience invested.

The neon-lit visuals and Tangerine Dream's moody, synth-heavy score create a distinct atmosphere that captures both the vibrancy and despair of late-night Los Angeles. The city itself becomes a character, teeming with frantic energy as chaos erupts in the wake of impending doom.

Though it's firmly rooted in its Cold War-era context, Miracle Mile remains timeless in its exploration of human connection and the fragility of life. It's a poignant reminder of how quickly everything can change and how love and hope endure, even in the face of annihilation.

Final Thoughts: Miracle Mile is a suspenseful, emotional rollercoaster that deserves far more recognition than it's received. With compelling performances, stunning visuals, and a story that stays with you long after the credits roll, it's a must-watch for fans of smart, emotionally driven thrillers.

Rating: 9/10 A beautifully crafted, edge-of-your-seat thriller that's as heartfelt as it is harrowing. Miracle Mile is a true cult classic that leaves an indelible mark.

Cheesy dialogue, bad acting, characters who are so incredibly stupid that the ending feels well-deserved. I laughed a lot when I wasn't cringing.

I really hope RiffTrax can riff this one someday.

It's amazing to see the rating this movie has or to read some of the other reviews here claiming this film was brilliant, realistic, etc. I don't understand how someone can give it more than 3 stars.

The plot is simple: One afternoon a guy next door meets the love of his life, at night he loses a date with her and accidentally he receives a call in a pay phone saying that a nuclear attack is going to happen in about one hour. He panics and goes desperately doing stupid things to find his girl and save her and himself.

OK. The panic in this movie was well depicted but there were MANY implausible things that made me laugh... Just from the start what would a normal person do with that phone call? Anybody would just hang up the phone and continue his/her life. A normal person would go after someone that met just a few hours ago while the world is going to end? These are just examples but the movie was full of things like that, one by the other. The decisions these characters took were far away to be realistic.

The movie was not boring at all, it is quite suspenseful but the characters behavior and the acting was pathetic. The only redeeming feature of this film was the music and the atmosphere. You will also smile when you see some of The Terminator supporting actors appearing here. This film would have been great as a comedy, but it was sold as a drama about nukes.

If you want to get some fun rent it. I think you will enjoy it if you set you up for a comedy/hilarious film. Now if you want to watch a realistic and chilling nukes movie go for The Day After, Threads or Testament.

This is actually my favourite American movie ever, and also my favourite thriller ever. I've seen it three times, and I've been blown away on each occasion. Some elements may be compared to Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys, but I find Miracle Mile superior to it.

The plot is incredibly good, with much more depth than I thought after seeing it the first time - at that time I mistakenly thought it was a little flawed. The use of colours is also noteworthy.

While the movie is extraordinarily captivating overall, I think a few scenes in the beginning have a somewhat cheesy 80s feeling to them, but they're still strangely hypnotic.

One might also wish that some of the acting were a little better. Nevertheless, I see now that Anthony Edwards makes an absolutely outstanding acting performance in the lead role. The Tangerine Dream soundtrack is also excellent. By all means, don't let the movie's quite apparent weaknesses deceive you into thinking that this is just another second-rate, one-dimensional thriller.

To anyone who has not seen this, I would urge you to try & obtain a copy because it is amazing On the face of it, it would appear to be a simple thriller about whether the Anthony Edwards character has listened to a genuine message that a nuclear strike is about to hit Los Angeles, or whether it is a hoax, and the subsequent panic it causes. However the film goes much deeper than that, dealing with the issue of fate, our own mortality, relationships with each other & the fact that the human race has evolved so much that we have the power to undo all that we have achieved & destroy ourselves.

Coupled with an amazing soundtrack by Tangerine Dream & superb acting, this is a very special film.

If it weren't for the eeriness of the score that Tangerine Dream creates with their synth music, one could easily get the feeling that the opening of Miracle Mile is setting up for a classic romantic comedy. I'd be lying if I didn't say that I would have preferred that story to what this film actually becomes. Sure enough, as those strange melodies allude to, there's something bad about to happen. I wasn't sure how far this movie would go towards doomsday, but I kind of liked that the bulk of the movie was played in real-time as the characters scramble from place to place (even if it feels like they never really get anywhere at all.) That kind of frenetic pacing makes it seem like you have no time to breathe, just like the characters. I felt the tension mounting in the early scenes quite powerfully. However, because of the nature of the disaster that awaited our protagonists, it seemed fairly obvious (as the movie progressed) that they were wasting their time together. Long before the movie ended, safe escape was futile.

It does make me think that there was a good concept inside Miracle Mile, though. I wish they had maintained more ambiguity on whether the phone call was real or not. Have the call cut off earlier and remove Denise Crosby's character from the film, then it could be truly interesting. With those minor tweaks they would have added tension because there's always a chance Anthony Edwards has jumped to a false conclusion and the chaos that ensues might be an unnecessary consequence of his own misunderstanding. I know, I'm writing a different movie in my head, but I think there were enough elements which I liked in Miracle Mile that I wish I could fix the parts I didn't enjoy. One thing I really appreciated in this film was the fact that most people made rash and crazy choices, but for once it felt justified. Some of the things people do here would be insane in real life, and I'd complain about them in another movie. But when the world becomes crazy, it makes sense that you would change along with it, and rationality could become a casualty of the chaos. I can't say Miracle Mile is a favorite film, but it has potential, and I kind of wish it had lived up to it.

I was going to call this movie a romantic comedy with a pre-apocalyptic backdrop. Then I stopped and started pondering, maybe it was an apocalyptic movie with comedic overtones? Then the truth revealed itself to me in its sheer enlightening power- there's one precise word, in the English language, to define exactly what this film is. And this word is ...mess.

And it doesn't make any difference whether this film is really more of a comedy or more a drama, because in the end its flaws are so big to overshadow any intended or potential meaning it could have had.

Starting off as a romantic comedy, the plot then steers toward a pretty formulaic race against the clock script where the characters (and the actors who portray them) can't seem to remember they're no more in the comedy and they should stop making cheesy jokes and behaving like scatterbrains - to find this realistic and compelling your name has to be Truman and you spent your whole life in a silly TV series.

It is interesting to mention how this turn is goofily delivered upon the unsuspecting audience, just to explain how bad the script is. Amidst the night, a public phone is ringing, unheard by most, just to be picked up by the main character, who was there by pure chance of course. At the other end the frantic voice of a soldier who's trying to call his father's home to warn him of impending nuclear doom but... he got the number wrong!! (Believe that! and obviously he can't tell this stranger from his father) Of course both the character AND the audience keep thinking this is a joke, until the aforementioned soldier is hastily executed live on the phone, which is when I started to think "awww this can't be true" and realized it was going to be worse than the second-rate comedy I had to endure in the first dozen minutes.

The whole plot is then propelled forward by such magnificent(ly bad) narrative devices - you would be tempted to think they were spoiling it on purpose, but it wasn't funny, not even by mistake: if this indeed was the aim, the filmmakers should have made it clear with a "DON'T PANIC" caption appearing on screen every five minutes.

Miracle Mile is like one of those weird guys that talk strange like they have some great and deep insight, and watching it is like getting to know him better in the hope he will turn out to be a genius, only to find you had just wasted your time listening to the meaningless ramblings of a clueless drunkard.

The main thing I love about suspense thrillers are their mainly based on what ifs. These what ifs are always based on subconscious fear of death or destruction of your life in any form that we would carry everyday. Like being charged with a crime you know you didn't commit, telling the truth but no one believes you, or just simply being at the wrong place at the wrong time. This what if is a big one because the worst thing than the threat of dying is actually knowing when.

This is one of the best and most disturbing suspense thrillers I've seen because it feels frighteningly plausible. The cinematography as well as effects (though not many)are great, I like the use of the Miami location in the time of night though day. I really love the score from Tangerine Dream. Though most importantly the I love the pacing and suspense where things just start out slowly then go really fast to the point you almost can't take the breath, it's sort of the dictum of calm before the storm.

The two main characters I really like, I like the fact that this couple they look like people we would pass by on the street this just makes the sympathy and emphasize level elevate because it makes us feel that what is happened to both of them could happen to us. Mare Winningham as Juile I thought was a solid significant other can hold her own in danger.

But most importantly I really like Anthony Edwards as Harry. He sort of like any other typical guy like any of us has aspirations on life and even life itself, he the kind of guy that isn't looking for trouble but as the saying goes trouble could be looking for him. I like how he reacts toward things because it feels like that is how I would react if ever in this predicament.

Everywhere around this guy there is just complete chaos left and right, you not just hoping he can survive the ordeal but be able to take control; the problem is chaos doesn't want to be controlled. One favorite cinematography shot and scene that I thought was both shocking and beautiful was Harry getting up on top of some van and he sees widespread panic everywhere from traffic completely jammed, cars speeding and exploding, looting, psychos killing people for no reason, and a lot of other bad things you can think about. In a way it shows that it's not going to be a cataclysmic event that will first destroy us but ourselves.

But I also like the chemistry between both Harry and Julie because it feels genuine, some of the things they say to each other feel like what any of us would say. I just like how despite how much chaos their both making the most of their interplay. Which makes it a little sad because these are two people that had aspirations in life, the knowledge of whats to come had robbed both of them of that. This sort of demonstrates how none of us have all the time in the world, whatever we had planned for tomorrow can be gone today.

Spend your day wisely, it could be your last.

Rating: 4 stars

I saw this movie back in 1989 and it blew my mind. Just like today it broke a lot of rules especially about endings.

I saw it in '89 when I was still dating my husband to be. We are still married today and haven't forgotten this movie. But in an era that is 30 years removed from Reagan Bush where males ensure that mass shootings happen 1.5 per each day in America this movie has less impact in the here and now then it did back when it was brand new.

The whole thing had and has a kind of surreal edge, somewhere between the aunjanue taking a Valium at the beginning and the fact that once 4 AM is reached Melatonin is the master of our minds. Somehow the creators of the movie gave it a feel that was very much like the substances that were dominant.

Everything is a little weird, stark, edgy, all from the point when we reach 4 AM and onwards.

Once we get beyond the intro it is real time and once the Mcguffin is dropped the tension just builds. There is a bit of comedy but things get worse and heavier as we tend towards the inevitable end in real time.

Another issue in this movie is that it is recommended to young people who are curious about how people dealt with crises before Internet connectivity.

Without having instant access to instant communication and information people rely on things like word of mouth, hoping people will relay messages, passing on rumors and pay phones. Otherwise they have to travel to the person to whom they wish to communicate.

The hero spends most of his time running around trying to locate his lady and find a way out. It is really weird and indicative of the Reagan Bush era how he is not really willing to say what the problem is and comes up with every excuse (toxic fire with cyanide cloud is just one) under the sun except impending nuclear war when dealing with people.

The closer we get to the very non Hollywood ending the more chaotic things become.

Our hero is never in control but it comes home poignantly as we proceed towards the final quarter of the movie when the surrealism and chaos amps up (cops abandoning the scene scene).

It only took an hour for a rumor to start spreading through the entire city. Without digital connectivity In the middle of the night.

This movie is commendable and recommended for a lot of reasons but be ready for a very non Hollywood ending.

In the end I was kind of left wondering did the war start the rumors or did the rumors start the war. Either seemed equally possible.

The extended ending scenes with them trying to comfort each other through the horror is a beautiful illustration of what love is really about.

Basically if you don't shed a tear at the end you don't really have a soul.