In the first 10 minutes of this movie I realized I had seen it before, years back in one of my "apocalype films" runs where I was watching a bunch of movies of that type. I stuck with this and rewatched primarily cause I remembered this movie being really good, and on rewatch I was not disappointed.
We start with a nice location shooting at the LaBrea tar pits, which was walking distance from where I used to live in LA if you wanted a bit of a long walk. Harry is a schmo-regular-man without a real life, finally finding a girl he likes and arranging a date with her. They decide to meet at a restaurant at 1am, Harry oversleeps, comes there late, and intercepts a random phone call with a stranger telling him the world is about to end, nukes have been launched, and the apocalype is coming.
What's awesome about this movie is the almost real-time unfolding of what happens next. We follow Harry as he tries to figure out what's going on, tells people around him, and then decides to try to get to this girl he just met, Julie. As he involves more people, things get more and more complicated, and as they begin to react, the world gets more and more chaotic. Soon, a panic has set in and Los Angeles is plunged into a riot.
Miracle Mile is a unknown of, bomb movie which I don't think has been reclaimed by the cult film scene, and it's movies like that that make me love movies and keep searching for more. This movie hits all the right keys, and thats not even a stupid pun in regards to the excellent score by Tangerine Dream. Its creepy, fun, adventurous, tense, dark, and comic when it needs to be, and it masters the pacing phenomenally. The best thing about this is the slow ramp up, and by the end you might very well be on your toes cringing worn out by the stress of this pretty short, low scale movie.
This is the type of thing to seek out, this is the type of thing that freaks like me are doing this whole "movie watching thing" for. I loved it and I give it 5 stars.
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