A brave, brash apocalyptic drama — We need more Australian films like These Final Hours

THESE Final Hours: A brave, brash apocalyptic Aussie drama achieves an instant impact, and also leaves a lasting mark.

We need more Australian films like this

NOBODY you are about to meet in These Final Hours will die wondering.

The same goes for this remarkable new Australian film. It is a brave, brash apocalyptic drama that achieves an instant impact, and also leaves a lasting mark.

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Nathan Phillips is James, a typical young Aussie bloke who has some important choices to make.

Risks are taken.

Not all of them pay off, but the filmmakers own the consequences, come what may.

The film’s dual ambitions — to keep moving, and keep its audience moved — are fully realised.

These Final Hours is by no means perfect, but it won’t be forgotten in a hurry. We need more Australian films like this.

Right now.

James is all set to party to the end of the world until he meets Rose (Angourie Rice).

The narrative cuts straight to the chase, just as it should given the dire situation already cemented in place.

The world is about to end. No chance of a last-minute reprieve. The planet is officially toast. A radioactive tsunami is sweeping the globe, west to east. The Americas and Europe are already in ashes. Asia is just beginning to fry. Australia is scheduled for its nuclear holocaust in a matter of hours.

If the outer suburbs of Perth — the principal setting of These Final Hours — are any indication, we as a nation have not taken the news well.

Jessica De Gouw and Nathan Phillips in a scene from <i>These Final Hours</i>.

Law and order have been abandoned. It is every man, woman and child for themselves. Those who are not trying to kill each other are more than likely to be attempting to kill themselves.

Others are looking for one last vestige of peace, closure, pleasure — or all of the above.

James (Nathan Phillips) is your typical young Australian bloke. Not a deep thinker. He has carried on as if he’s here for a good time, not a long time.

But even now, with time rapidly running out, James has to make some final choices that must be lived with, and indeed died with.

James must decide how to spend is final hours and with whom.

Should he help that lost young child looking for her parents? Which family, friends and lovers should he be saying farewell to?

Will it be better to get high as a kite at the end, or stay stone cold sober? Should he draw his last breath in the company of someone he knows, or face the big bang on his own?

Watching how James deals with each quandary — and wondering how we might respond in the same situation — allows the film to become something more than a bleak, numbing prospect for viewers.

<i>These Final Hours</i> remains powerful and arrestingly ominous throughout.

Though there is more than the odd stumble along the way, the intense atmosphere conjured by young writer and director Zak Hilditch — and its scrupulously balanced blending of danger, despair, defiance and death — remains powerful and arrestingly ominous throughout.

These Final Hours (MA15+)

Director: Zak Hilditch

Starring: Nathan Phillips, Jessica De Gouw, Daniel Henshall, Angourie Rice

Verdict: Four stars. Over but not out

Originally published as A brave, brash apocalyptic drama — We need more Australian films like These Final Hours