Product Details

• Actors: Anthony Edwards, Mare Winningham, John Agar, Lou Hancock, Mykelti Williamson
• Directors: Steve De Jarnatt
• Writers: Steve De Jarnatt
• Producers: Derek Gibson, Eileen Stringer, Graham Cottle, John Daly
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• VHS Release Date: March 28, 1995
• Run Time: 87 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00004WI6H
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,503 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
What do you do when you're given the deadline for the end of the world? Steve De Jarnatt's insidiously clever and utterly gripping nuclear thriller begins as a romantic lark--amiable swing trombonist Anthony Edwards meets girl of his dreams Mare Winningham--and turns into a nightmarish vision of society out of control. It all turns on the chance pick-up of a ringing pay phone at 4 a.m. and a panicked voice breathlessly warning Edwards that World War III has been launched. Genuine wake-up call or elaborate prank? De Jarnatt plays his hand close to the chest, which only increases the unnerving tension as word spreads like a contagion. Future E.R. star Edwards is perfectly cast as the everyman driven to reckless desperation and director De Jarnatt creates wonders on a small budget. His vision of L.A.'s Miracle Mile gripped in the blind panic of a careening traffic jam is both believable and chilling. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not Even Slightly Relaxing, August 2, 2002

By	absent_minded_prof (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

"People always think they have so much time... to do all the things they'd like to do..." Years after seeing this film, that line is one of the main things that still sticks with me.

This movie was an early effort by Anthony Edwards and Mare Winningham. The basic idea is of a young couple who has just started falling in love, and begun thinking of planning a life together -- only to find that World War Three has suddenly begun. Anthony Edwards is planning to meet Mare Winningham after work, which for her is about one o'clock in the morning. She works at one of those all-night coffee houses, in Los Angeles. He sets his alarm clock for midnight, and tries to catch a few hours of shut-eye before their date.

The writer, or maybe the director (I'm not sure) did something really clever here. One of the film's characters absently throws away a lit cigarette butt, which, unbeknownst to the the character, gets picked up by a bird. The bird wishes to incorporate the butt into its nest, and does so. However, because the butt still has a slight spark left in it, the butt ends up setting the nest on fire. The small nest fire does not spread, but it does have the effect of burning through the insulation of the electrical wires upon which the nest sits. As luck would have it, these wires are the ones which supply Anthony Edwards' building with electricity. So when the power fails, so does his alarm clock, although he remains ignorant of the entire sequence of cause and effect behind this event... this little sequence makes us think of the many chains of events going on all the time, outside our own circle of awareness, which could eventually have some impact upon us. In the case of the bird with the cigarette butt, the result is that Anthony Edwards is three hours late to meet Mare Winningham, who of course has already gone home in a state of depression. However, the fact that he is late for their date has another chance result -- he happens to be standing near a payphone, right outside Mare Winningham's coffeehouse, when it rings. The caller is part of another, far more deadly unseen sequence of cause and effect, going on out in the world beyond L.A. We never find out the details of what has been going on in the place where the caller is calling from, (a missile silo), or the events in Washington and Moscow that led up to the random phone call. Unfortunately, the sequence in which the caller is playing a part seems to have come to a horrifying conclusion -- the caller claims that a nuclear war has been declared, completely unknown to U.S. citizens, in the middle of the night.

Anthony Edwards isn't even sure if the phone call is real. Obviously it was a wrong number. Besides, perhaps someone is just playing a prank! Then again... perhaps someone is NOT playing a prank.

A hyper-efficient, high-octane, female stockbroker, played by Denise Crosby, happens to be in the coffeehouse when Anthony Edwards staggers dazedly in. She assesses the situation, and decides to IMMEDIATELY hire a jet airplane to take her, and whoever can keep up with her, to the extreme southern hemisphere. (Radiation is expected to be a little less awful there, in most nuclear war scenarios). She behaves how people SHOULD behave in a situation like this -- efficiently, swiftly, decisively. But how many of her fellow mortals can live up to her excellent standards?

The answer is, basically, none. Total panic engulfs the entire city in a matter of minutes, as news spreads about the phone call. Most terrifyingly, no one seems capable of doing the one thing that they must do, which is simply to drop everything and flee immediately. Everyone keeps thinking of that one more thing they "need" to do, before seeking shelter outside the city. Eventually... well, I'll let you see for yourself.

This is a terrifying movie. For another film that is very similar, but even more graphic, I recommend that you look for the 1984 British TV-movie "Threads," witten by Barry Hines. "Threads" can be found on the British Amazon.com, or in online auction houses if you search for the two terms "threads" and "war" together, in the fields for VHS or DVDs. If you'd like some real, serious information about about nuclear war, (which hardly anyone seems to possess), try "The Cold and The Dark: The World after Nuclear War" by Paul Ehrlich and Carl Sagan, with a forword by Lewis Thomas. You could also read "Planet Earth in Jeopardy: Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War," by Lydia Dotto.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I need a miracle!, May 1, 2004

By	D. Roberts "Hadrian12" (Battle Creek, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Miracle Mile (DVD)

When I first rented this movie in the early 1990s I wanted to buy it, but it was out-of-print on VHS. I figured I would never be able to purchase it, but the world of DVD has changed that. Thankfully, its release on DVD is a very welcome addition to my cinematic library.

Anthony Edwards, best known for his portrayal of Goose in TOP GUN, plays an everyday guy. Mare Winningham plays an everyday girl. The two fall in love & look like they're well on their way to living happily ever after when their Romantic interlude is interrupted by a nuclear war.

There is nothing more heartbreaking than a terminally ill person who has only weeks or months to live. Situations like that bring out the best in all of us. We treat that person like royalty as we know they will not have a tomorrow; every moment counts.

However, in a grotesque world where EVERYONE is terminally ill, with only hours or perhaps minutes to live, things don't work like that. Instead what you end up with is anarchy & absolute mayhem. It is this snapshot of the death throes of a civilization that forms the centerpiece of this movie's plot.

The film has some very nice symbolism. I particularly liked the obvious parallel between the end of mankind and the demise of the dinosaurs. The scene of the two being trapped in the helicopter is a nice touch as well as it brings out the clausterphobic terror of a nuclear war. Quite simply, there IS no place to run to, and there is no escape.

At the beginning of the film, inside a museum of Natural History, there is a voiceover on a presentation of the history of the universe. A 15-20 billion year old universe, a 4 & 1/2 year old planet, sundry lifeforms that have taken millions of years to evolve. The film is noteworthy for how it makes one realize that nearly every species on earth could be wiped on in a matter of days.

While the Cold War is now over & terrorism is the new threat that has emerged to cause us all anxiety, this movie remains a classic. I cannot help but think that the human race is not "out of the woods" as far as a nuclear arms race goes. Someday there will likely be a country that will stockpile enough nukes to take the place of Russia as a nuclear weapons rival. If / when that happens, MIRACLE MILE will have more relevance to our day-to-day lives than ever.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Night Before the Day After, September 9, 2003

By	Jeffrey Ellis "bored recluse" (Richardson, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Miracle Mile (DVD)

Miracle Mile is one of those unique and savagely brilliant films that has never quite gotten its due despite seeming to leave an undeniable impression on just about everyone who has somehow lucked into seeing it. The low-budget film tells the story of an L.A. jazz musician (Anthony Edwards), a nice, mild guy who is lucky enough to not only meet the woman of his dreams (Mare Winningham) but to convince her to go out on a date with him later in the night. He is also unlucky enough to end up oversleeping and missing their date. Still, he drives out to the diner where they were supposed to meet on the slim hope that maybe she's stuck around for a few extra hours waiting for him. And while she hasn't, Edwards does arrive just in time to answer a pay phone and discover that, in just a few more hours, Los Angeles is going to be destroyed in the first nuclear strike of World War III. The rest of the film follows Edwards comically hapless yet touchingly sincere efforts to both reunite with Winningham and to get out of L.A. in the small amount of time he has before the bombs start falling. What starts as a hilarious comedy of errors becomes an all-to-realistic portrait of absurd tragedy as the film reaches it's unavoidable conclusion. The film's power comes from just how seamlessly the film handles the transition from comedy to tragedy (often times shifting between the two a couple of hundred times in the course of just one scene) -- a tonal combination that may, at first, seem like a contradiction but one that accurately reflects the feelings that many of us felt, during the Cold War, growing up with the constant possibility of sudden nuclear holocaust in the back of our minds. Director Steve DeJarnett handles the film with just the right touch, never going overboard on either the comedy or the pathos. Though she doesn't have much to do beyond being sweetly perfect, Mare Winningham proves herself to be the perfect actress for the job. In Anthony Edwards, DeJarnett was lucky to find the perfect leading man for his story. Long before ER made him famous, Edwards here embodies the elusive concept of the everyman. Neither a super hero or a total schlub, Edwards is totally winning and believable as a guy who is both unlucky in love and fate. Watching him, you know that he's not the type of action hero who can prevent a nuclear war but you also know that he's not the type of guy who's willing to allow the world to end without first finding true love. In short, he's just like you and that's what makes Miracle Mile such a powerful and affecting little film.