These Final Hours (2013)

Nathan Phillips stars here as James, a selfish mess of a young man who is trying to get to a party, and to his girlfriend. He wants to get drunk and messy, but ends up distracted from his main journey by a young girl (Rose, played by Angourie Rice) he ends up saving from some dangerous pedophiles. The two head along to the party, an occasion with added significance for being the last one that many will attend. The world is about to end, you see, and people are making choices about how to spend their last living moments. Many want to break rules and wallow in excess and debauchery, some just want to find the right person with which to shuffle off the mortal coil.

Written and directed by Zak Hilditch, These Final Hours is a very good film, technically speaking, that just didn’t resonate with me. I finally checked this out after friends mentioned it recently, and nobody really had a bad word to say about it, so I expected good things. Weirdly, I can recognise all of the individual moments that should affect and move me. They just didn’t work, mainly because this film feels so derivative of many other films in this specific sub-genre without ever really committing to any specific tone. You have moments of tension, but they are too fleeting. You have moments of strong emotion, but they are often held in check by the characters. You have a good central relationship between James and Rose, but it already begins with everyone knowing that they won’t have much time together.

Phillips and Rice are both excellent in their roles, believable and easy to root for, especially when compared to almost everyone else appearing in the movie. Sarah Snook makes a strong impression as a woman who sees her own daughter in Rose, Daniel Henshall is the party host, and both Kathryn Beck and Jessica de Gouw play the main women figuring in plans that James has for his last day of life. Lynette Curran also deserves a mention, onscreen for a key scene between James and his mother.

I cannot put my finger on why I didn’t like this as much as so many other people. I like the cast, I like the journey that the main characters go on, I like the decisions made by Hilditch to avoid providing any easy escape, or deus ex machine, for his leads. I just didn’t truly settle in to the full experience, and I was always wondering about the many different directions this could have gone in, to make the film a bit darker or lighter. Maybe it hits a bit differently after seeing how awful human beings can be when there’s even a hint of something affecting their day to day lives, which makes the behaviours shown here far from shocking. Or maybe I am just growing a bit more heartless and/or stoic in my “old age”. 

5/10

If you have enjoyed this, or any other, review on the blog then do consider the following ways to show your appreciation. A subscription/follow costs nothing.
It also costs nothing to like/subscribe to the YouTube channel attached to the podcast I am part of - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCErkxBO0xds5qd_rhjFgDmA
Or you may have a couple of quid to throw at me, in Ko-fi form - https://ko-fi.com/kevinmatthews