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1989 R 87 minutes Los Angeles resident Harry (Anthony Edwards) picks up a ringing telephone in a street-corner booth and hears an apocalyptic message: A nuclear bomb is going to wipe out the City of Angels in 50 minutes! Now, Harry must do everything he can to save himself and his new love, Julie (Mare Winningham), a waitress he's just met. But should he let others in on his little secret and risk a citywide panic?
Depressing but fun to watch. Really well made, with a wry and witty beginning that suddenly begins to accelerate in an unpleasant way like water circling a drain. The story is necessarily compressed but the script and actors manage to make us believe that a few misfits would actually believe that this is happening and make a run for it, and they almost do it in real time. I think the instantaneous bonding that occurs just because they're all together is actually pretty believable.
On a whole other level, this plays like a bad dream in that everywhere our hero turns everything goes wrong and everything takes longer than it should. Just one hindrance after another - like any good running dream.
Catch Anthony Edwards with most of his hair somewhere between all those teen sex comedies from the early 80s and ER. At the time he was getting a reputation for odd little movies and this is one of the oddest. Catch Mykel T. Williamson before Forest Gump and 24 along with current 24 co-star Mare Winningham. Finally, note that this is the most obvious jumping off point for Cloverfield, right down to the helicopter. 5 stars out of 5.
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