Miracle Mile

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.

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?

I didn't hold high hopes for 'Miracle Mile'. Directed by Steve De Jarnatt who made the cheesy but fun 'Cherry 2000', and starring two actors (Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham) that I feel at best indifferent about, it starts off almost like a John Hughes romantic comedy, and your finger might begin to hover off the "off" button. But if you persevere it quickly becomes an utterly compelling thriller. It requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief to accept the premise of the movie, but once the story kicks in you really get sucked into it! Edwards is actually very good in the lead role, and the film is full of all kinds of familiar faces and character actors like Mykelti Williamson ('Truth Or Consequences, NM'), Denise Crosby ('Star Trek TNG'), Robert DoQui ('RoboCop'), even b-grade SF legend John Agar ('The Brain From Planet Arous'), and 'Reservoir Dogs' Mr. Blue Edward Bunker! This movie really seems to split people down the middle. Some hate it, some love it. I'm in the latter camp. Highly recommended!

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

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.