Meet James. He's an immature guy living his life from one bottle to the next. He's a terrible boyfriend and a cheat. His relationship with his mother is nonexistent. He's a terrible friend. He's an alcoholic and full of aggression and rage and just doesn't care about anyone or anything....until he meets Rose, an innocent little girl looking for her father, on this day, the last day before the end of the world.It might not seem like much, but this is a touching heartfelt story of redemption. It raises the questions: Is it too late to change? Is it too late to realise your mistakes and atone for them? What starts off slow pays off if you stick with it. As you progress through the journey with James and Rose, you'll find yourself caring more and more about them. The climax is worth it and if you don't shed a tear, you'd hardly be human. This is without a doubt one of the best hidden gems I have ever seen. Truly a magnificent experience on a limited budget, but so much more. It's a story that will leave a lasting impression and cause you to look inside yourself. Are you living as well as you could be? What if you didn't have time to correct your sins?Do yourself a favor and see it. I promise that you won't regret it.

The premise is an asteroid strike on the far side of the earth. An impact so violent that the blast wave will spread across the entire globe in a rolling fireball. The fact that people the furthermost from the impending disaster now have a countdown for their inevitable deaths is explored (primarily using male and female 20 somethings).I found the actions believable as in we'd all react differently to being told we are about to die. Some people would go insane, some wold shrug it off, commit suicide, have a party, watch re-runs on TV. The gamut was well represented.As a debut feature by Zac Hilditch, I say well done. Suburban apocalypse has been done and done and done but this entry is original enough to still be wedged into the collection.Nathan Phillip's 'James' doesn't get any back story for us to judge his morals and ethics by. He does well to show how torn he is when a desperate instinct to die while smashed out of his head on alcohol and drugs is repeatedly interrupted. At first he manages to push his conscience aside as his girlfriend tells him she is pregnant. Angry and afraid he runs from her, heading to his best friends end of the world party and looking forward to hooking up with his old girlfriend.He has a few problems on the way and must abandon his car. On the look out for another vehicle he sees two pedophiles carrying a young girl they've snatched off the street into a house. His conscience will not allow him to steal their car and leave her to be attacked so he rescues her (Rose) Ingourie Rice. She is a natural born actor and I usually hate child actors.Rose wants to return to her Dad but James tries every other way to get rid of her. First he tries to drop her at his sister (already committed suicide), takes her to the rave party (where she is given Ecstasy), and then to his estranged mother (she's totally resigned to the impeding doom). There are some really good indicators along the way that he is becoming more and more attached to Rose but he really can't seem to work out why. His confusion is shown so well. Finally convinced that he isn't going to get a handle on his own problems in the time he has left, James resolves to at least deliver Rose to her Aunty. His good deed I guess.He leaves Rose at the Aunty's house after discovering the family has all committed suicide You'll just have to make up your own mind here but I found this scene quite moving and believable. It's the end of the world so you don't have the luxury of thinking through every possible scenario. The main point made was that Rose wanted to die with the person she loved (Dad) which make James realise that he wants to be with Zoe and his unborn child.I liked this film. Aussie culture is often depicted in extremely cringe-worthy ways, and some of the scenes were over the top stereo types. But as a whole this is the new generation of Australians.BTW guns are REALLY hard to get here so all the shooting was the most unreal part I thought. The cop was a good side step. I would have done a little more with that scene though.

The best movie about the end of the world that I've seen, because like all great movies TFH is about the people who inhabit that dying world, not about the event itself. We meet many interesting characters from different generations, yet all who receive more than a flash of screen time have rounded characters, not caricatures. I felt I saw the essence of everyone in the film, not an easy task to accomplish. TFH is a heart-wrenching experience but not without reward that makes it worthwhile, with the strong hand of an artist creating a tapestry that is vivid and compelling. I've seen the movie twice with no reduction in its authority. Not for party night, but most other nights it should work fine.

"These Final Hours" (2013) is an unflinching Australian end-of-the- world movie that views humanity's last 12 hours through the eyes a flawed, desperate everyman. It's outstanding; I'd give it a 9 out of 10.This movie pulls off a pretty neat trick — it effectively portrays a global catastrophe with zero special effects until its closing set- piece. (And these visual effects work quite nicely for a low-budget film.) A meteor has struck the northern Atlantic, and a resultant wave of destruction is enveloping the earth. Its progress is documented in real time by a sad ham radio operator, wonderfully performed by David Field.What we see is gut-wrenching. Some people turn suicidal, a few turn homicidal. People drink, use drugs and have sex, either privately or not. Some are depressed, some are too drug-affected to care, and others are in shock. The rare, vain efforts to survive include the laughable (a tin foil-covered house) to the sadly insufficient (a stocked bunker that nevertheless isn't deep enough). One reaction is befuddling; we see a street barricaded with metal shopping carts with a sign cursing at passersby. This is a fatalistic story premise in which every character on screen is doomed to die within hours.We follow the surprisingly touching character arc for our troubled everyman. He's played by perfectly by Nathan Phillips. The young Angourie Rice is just as good as an incongruously self-controlled little girl who winds up his charge after being separated from her father. The cast is uniformly excellent. Hearing Kathryn Beck wail that she doesn't want to die is heartbreaking.For me, there were only a few flaws here. The pacing seemed … off somehow. This movie slowed toward the end, the nearer disaster approached. Phillips' protagonist seemed thinly scripted for much of the first hour. He seems like a generic guy, who plans to get drunk before the end of the world, which makes him much like nearly everyone else we see in this movie. Yes, he intervenes heroically when he first encounters the little girl, but we expect every movie protagonist to do that.With that said, however, every character did seem "real" to me, thanks to terrific naturalistic dialogue, written by Zak Hilditch. (He's also the director.) It made the drama hit home.