What makes it different from others?

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Miracle Mile according to me is one of the most underrated movies made in the 80s. Starring Anthony Edwards(Goose from Top Gun) and Mare Winningham the entire film takes place in real time in the course of one night. It starts off like any romantic movie- boy meets girl and promise to meet for date 2 which never happens as suddenly there is a threat of nuclear war and a bomb being dropped. The sense of urgency, surreal atmosphere and fantastic pacing make Miracle Mile a winner and a film that deserves to be seen more than it has. Please see it and spread the word.

In amid the unfunny comedies and silly romantic tales of the late '80s movie business comes this absorbing, interesting gem of a film dealing with the threat of nuclear war. Achieving wonders on what is a low budget, this is an intelligent, accurate slice of film-making which remains gripping from start to finish. The decision to make this a character-focused piece of drama, instead of a special effects intense film (think : Armageddon), makes it all the more thrilling in that we care about the people involved.A cast of mostly unknowns, only familiar from television, do a pretty good job to convey the fear as the clock ticks down to nuclear warfare. Another clever plot device is to have the film playing out in real time, so the viewer can also count the seconds ticking down to the strike, making it all the more intense. Anthony Edwards, while appearing somewhat wimpish and cowardly as the lead, does a great job, being as he is a messenger of death to most of the cast. You can really feel for his frantic plight as he rushes across the city and engages in all sorts of mishaps and violence. Many familiar faces turn up in bit parts, from Denise Crosby to the black police chief from ROBOCOP, who here plays the café owner. Also popping up are THE TERMINATOR's Doctor Silberman and Brian Thompson, the chief baddie in COBRA. Old timers John Agar and Lou Hancock provide a few laughs as the stubborn couple who are brought together by the threat - a cliché, yes, but a good one.There are plenty of tense, nail biting moments in this film. The café scene, where Edward struggles to convince the locals of the threat, is a great one, as is the petrol station incident which explodes into unexpected tragic violence. But it's in the final stages where the film really comes into it's own, showing a city in chaos, full of crashed cars, looters, and people who have lost all their scruples and are more than willing to kill in a bid to survive. It's clever how this film shows how such a threat can change people in different ways, reverting human society back to its basic principles. Widespread chaos is easily conveyed in some powerful, dramatic scenes of turmoil and confusion at the end, which are very impressive on a low budget and good at putting across the hopelessness of the situation.Okay, so the nuclear blast, when it comes, isn't very impressive (after all, they didn't have that big a budget, and I still think TERMINATOR 2 is the final word on portraying a horrific nuclear attack via spectacular effects), and the film does descend into some awful sentimentality in the dragged-out conclusion, with some terrible romantic stuff between Edwards and Winningham. But ignore these faults and instead focus on the ideas and issues behind this character-led piece of intense drama, and you'll have a great time.

Enjoyed it greatly! It's a sort of period piece, with dated production sensibilities. But it has a strange twist, in that it (I guess) narrowly predates the modern o'erweening producer skittishness, and teeters, then jumps headlong, into territory that utterly trounces its genre.The story of Se Jie (Lust|Caution, by Ang Lee) is a long-game romantic theme of heavy power tragically trumping love. It'd be nice to think that "Miracle Mile" successfully compresses this theme and stuffs it through a 24-hour (izzat right?) short-game tube, producing something redemptive and remonstrative and instructive and all that. Not quite. It tries, but it's ultimately what you'd expect; a somewhat tasty, tragic sausage.But: I genuinely admire it for daring to accomplish something so against demographic convention, against fiscal wisdom, and sincerely working so hard to pull it off. I would pronounce it well worth watching, at least to witness the monumental effort expended to make its dark dream come true.

In viewing Steve De Jarnett's Miracle Mile, I was reminded of being stuck in a terrible nightmare, a realistic, night sweats inducing doomsday scenario that plagues you even after waking in a clammy frenzy. Anthony Edwards plays Harry Washello, a timid hamster of a dude who in the films quirky opening, is searching for his dream girl. He finds her in Julie, an unconventional girl played by Mare Winningham. She has always been a fascinating actress, imbuing her creations with an eccentric, succinctly offbeat quality and always going for rewarding parts, like Jennifer Jason Leigh or Judy Davis. Harry loses track of her, and ends up at the dead end 24 hour diner where she works. While outside, a nearby payphone rings. He answers it, and a frantic voice on the other line delivers an unnerving proclamation: In just over an hour, launched nuclear missiles will descend on Los Angeles, killing millions. Is it a hoax? Or a a mistake? Either way, Harry is ruffled beyond the point of skepticism, and is whipped up, along with various nocturnal oddball who frequent the joint, into a feverish full on panic. A desperate rat race ensues as they all make a mad dash to a helipad atop a giant skyscraper, in an effort to escape the cataclysm. Harry makes a mad dash across town to find Julie and rescue her. The film has weird energy that tosses sanity out the window in favor of very surreal tone, as if the production was blessed with a month long full moon and actors that haven't slept in twice as long. I must note the dazzling color scheme, trust to the forefront of the film with garish neon signs and vibrant 80's costumes that flavor this story like exotic spices in a soup. The film could have easily picked a muted, dark hued tone to match the seriousness of the events, but it shows a pulse instead, which I admire, choosing to blast our psyches with psychedelic sensory output, leaving stark impressions on us. The life of the film for me is the fantastic score by Tangerine Dream, droning a twitchy beat of mounting unease, with interludes of synthetic haze that hangs in our ears like the hazy LA smog of the visual palette. Doomsday scenarios in film are easy to realistically document, but harder to actually make an impact and make you feel uncomfortable, and in doing so draw you in. This one sucks you right in as soon as that damn payphone rings, and doesn't let you off the wagon easy either. By the end you'll just want to wake up from the bad dream and take a breath of air, free from the claustrophobia and fleeting terror. When that happens in a film, you know it's succeeded as a thriller.