Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

These Final Hours Blu-ray Movie Review

Does Australia know something the rest of us don't?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 13, 2015

Okay, Australia, this has to stop. Twice now in relatively recent reviews, I’ve talked about the weird concatenation of Apocalyptic dramas taking place Down Under. On the Beach. Mad Max. Tank Girl. The Rover. Well, it’s time to add another one to the list: These Final Hours, a surprisingly well done and even at times relatively thought provoking end of the world film that posits a troubled young man trying to come to terms with the last few hours of his existence while also shepherding an abandoned little girl to some port of relative safety. Quiet and introspective in the same way that On the Beach was, but then surprisingly feral and violent in the same manner as The Rover, These Final Hours is an often fascinating character study that is helped immensely by pitch perfect performances by Nathan Phillips as James, the man on the run (from what and to where even he doesn’t seem to know) and an awesome Angourie Rice as Rose, a little girl who has to grow up awfully fast before all life comes to a fiery end.

These Final Hours indulges in some probably needless structural artifices in its earlier going which actually tend to slightly bury the fact that it is not a nuclear holocaust this time that has put Australia on notice its days are numbered, but instead a giant asteroid that has crashed into the ocean, already destroying a huge swath of western Europe and even raining destruction down on the east coast of the United States. A countdown is now in effect in Australia, and specifically the port city of Perth, as residents await a fireball which will destroy all life in its wake.

While needlessly cutting between a couple of relatively disparate timelines (they can’t be that disparate considering the fact that these characters only have a few hours left to live), These Final Hours quickly establishes that James has forsaken girlfriend Zoe (Jessica De Gouw), a woman who has just told him she’s pregnant (after some unusually graphic on screen sex), in favor of attending a (literal) end of the world party being held by some friends of his. (Hey, it’s Australia—only in films like On the Beach do they sit around having polite conversation about their imminent demise.) That sets the film out on the bulk of its “road trip,” one which is interrupted in the early going first by a car hijacker (a sequence which ends with the film's first really horrifying violence) and then a bit later when James sees a terrified little girl being manhandled by two creeps who obviously have nefarious ulterior motives on their minds.

In the next of a handful of rather shockingly violent interchanges, James, who just really wants to get to the bacchanal, decides to come to the aid of the little girl, whose plaintive cries for help can be heard echoing through a largely abandoned village. James finds a hammer in the guys’ truck and proceeds to dispatch the two villains (after a skirmish, of course), finally freeing the little girl, whose name is Rose. Rose has gotten separated from her father and is trying to get to her Aunt’s house. Will James help?

Perhaps not all that surprisingly, while James is at least willing to get the girl out of harm’s way, his first instinct is simply to drop her off somewhere so that he can go about his business unfettered. He decides to take her to his sister’s house, where he makes a grim discovery (handled rather brilliantly by writer-director Zak Hilditch), necessitating keeping the little girl with him as he finally makes his way to what boils down to an out of control orgy fueled by lots of alcohol and drugs. There it turns out James has another girlfriend, a bit more of a hysterical harridan named Vicky (Kathryn Beck). Vicky’s gonzo brother Freddy (Daniel Henshall) is the host of the party and, it turns out, James’ potential savior as he has constructed an underground shelter that he and a few chosen people are going to hightail it to as the fireball approaches. (This aspect is a bit illogical and under developed—how, for instance, could Freddy have built this thing in the little bit of time since the asteroid landed, and if not built “for” this occasion, why does it even exist in the first place?)

In the meantime young Rose has captured the fancy of an obviously disturbed woman who thinks Rose is her own daughter. The woman foists some sort of hallucinogenic on the poor girl (in one of the film’s most annoying plot points—isn’t Rose way too self possessed and intelligent to simply swallow the pill?), at which point James, having left the hysterical Vicki, rescues the girl. That leads to a showdown which ends in yet another appalling display of violence, one which all the partygoers simply take in stride (one of the “party games” that has already been shown is guys vying with each other in a game of Russian roulette, with the expected result for one of them).

James gets Rose out of that unhealthy situation and to a brief respite at the home of his mother, where decades of dysfunction aren’t exactly solved in the twinkling of an eye. Finally with Rose returned to a semblance of normalcy, James manages to get her to her Aunt’s farm, which is where some more distressing denouements await. Through it all, the harried James and usually surprisingly cool, calm and collected Rose discuss a number of issues, however fleetingly, having evidently come to the conclusion that freaking out about the inevitable will solve nothing. A probably too pat final coda lets James supposedly atone for past sins as that inevitable approaches.

These Final Hours doesn’t gel completely, and is occasionally buffeted by unsure plotting and less than effective dialogue. But the film has an unusually focused demeanor throughout the bulk of its running time, offering a really interesting dynamic between James and Rose. Visually quite striking, with a kind of sickly yellow hue suggesting both the dog days of summer and (not so coincidentally) the final days of Mankind, These Final Hours may not be the only film about the “end times” Down Under, but it’s certainly one of the more compelling.

These Final Hours Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

These Final Hours is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. As mentioned above in the main body of the review, the film is quite striking from a visual standpoint, with director Zak Hilditch and cinematographer Bonnie Elliott repeatedly exploiting a saffron bathed ambience which suggests indolence and, ultimately, death. Perhaps surprisingly, detail and fine detail are never really compromised in any meaningful way with this rather aggressive color grading, and in fact close-ups offer superb fine detail (see screenshots 4 and 16, for just two examples). The sequence in the fallout shelter is aggressively blue in hue (see screenshot 14), and here a bit of fine detail is lacking, at least when compared to the bulk of the enterprise. Outdoor shots often provide great depth of field (see screenshots 3 and 5). The image is typically very sharp and well defined, though contrast is occasionally intentionally pushed, leading to slight blooming in the lightest gradients. There are also some very minor instances of banding, especially with the camera aimed at various light sources, but overall this is a really excellent and interesting looking release.

These Final Hours Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

These Final Hours features a nicely immersive lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track which ping pongs between frenetic activity like the hustle and bustle at the end of the world party and quieter, more expansive moments as James drives through a barren countryside. Ambient environmental sounds are well placed throughout the surrounds, offering both claustrophobic and agoraphobic elements in about equal measure. Dialogue is very cleanly presented and well prioritized. Fidelity is fine and dynamic range fairly wide in this problem free track.

These Final Hours Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080p; 1:41)

Note: As tends to be the case with Well Go USA releases, this disc has been authored to move directly on to the previews for other Well Go USA releases after playing this film's trailer.

These Final Hours Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I confess I saw the write up on the press materials of These Final Hours and kind of sighed to myself, "What—another Australian post-apocalyptic movie?" I was therefore pleasantly surprised by the sober, mostly unsentimental but accessible take writer-director Zak Hilditch brought to this project, focusing on two lost souls trying to get someplace (maybe any place) before disaster strikes. Not completely successful but still engaging virtually every step of the way, the film provides showcases for stars Nathan Phillips and (especially) Angourie Rice. Strikingly photographed, the release boasts excellent technical merits on Blu-ray and comes Recommended.