Handlung

A young man hears a chance phone call telling him that a nuclear war has started and missiles will hit the city within 70 minutes.

A young man meets and falls in love with a young woman at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles. This area is known as Miracle Mile, and the whole movie takes place there. They make a date, which he misses, and while he is searching for her, he accidentally finds out that we (the United States) are about to start a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. He frantically searches for her so that they can escape Los Angeles.—Mark Logan <marklo@west.sun.com>

In Los Angeles, when the musician Harry Washello meets Julie Peters in the museum, he immediately falls in love with her. They schedule a date late night in Miracle Mile, but the alarm clock fails and Harry misses the date and he arrives three and a half hours late. Harry accidentally hears a mistaken phone call and a man tells that the United State has just started a nuclear war sending missiles against Soviet Union and in two hours Los Angeles would be hit by the enemy back missiles. Harry seeks out Julie and frantically tries to find a helicopter pilot to leave Los Angeles. Meanwhile the rumor is spread out and brings chaos to the city.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Harry finally meets the girl of his dreams--on the last day of Earth. Harry mistakenly picked up a ringing pay phone to learn that a nuclear war had already begun. Now with a ticking clock and a rioting city deteriorating around him, Harry must guide Julie to safety. But can he save himself as lawlessness becomes the norm and terror grips every living soul in the city?—Tim Kretschmann <Tim.K@VirComm.com>

Harry Washello is a thirty-year-old Glenn Miller cover band artist and a resident of the Los Angeles neighborhood street known as Miracle Mile. He befriends Julie Peters, a youth volunteer, at the La Brea Tar Pits during a school field trip, where they immediately fall in love. They spend the afternoon together, and Harry meets Julie's grandparents, both of whom raised her but who are estranged and live in separate buildings. Ivan Peters buys Harry a tube steak from a food truck, causing Lucy Peters to cry. The awkward moment is brushed off when Harry and Julie arrange to meet at midnight to go dancing after her shift at a local coffee shop. A power failure caused by a hay bale burning up on the transformer means Harry's alarm fails to wake him, and a frustrated Julie leaves for home.

When Harry awakens that night he realizes what has happened and rushes to the coffee shop, arriving at 4 AM. Harry tries to call Julie on a payphone, but only reaches her answering machine, where he leaves an apology. The phone rings as soon as the previous call ends and Harry answers, hearing a frantic man named Chip urgently warning that war will break out in less than seventy minutes. When Harry asks who is calling, Chip realizes that he has dialed the wrong area code. He pleads with Harry to call his father and apologize for some past wrong before he is interrupted and presumably shot dead. An unfamiliar voice picks up the phone and tells Harry to forget everything he has just heard "and go back to sleep" before disconnecting.

Harry, confused and not entirely convinced of the reality of the information, wanders back into the diner and tells the other customers what he has heard. As the patrons scoff at his story, one of them, a businesswoman named Landa, places calls to politicians in Washington and finds that they are all suddenly heading for "the extreme Southern Hemisphere". She verifies the authenticity of certain elements of Harry's phone conversation and, convinced of the danger, immediately charters private jets out of Los Angeles International Airport to a compound in a region in Antarctica with no rainfall. Most of the customers and staff leave with her in the owner's delivery van. This includes Julie's fellow waitress and best friend Susie, a homeless vagrant named "Spongy", obese truck driver Harlan, businessman Mike, and an unnamed, neurotic airline stewardess. Roger, a transvestite, chalks up the issue to a mere prank and decides to stay behind. When the coffee shop owner refuses to make any stops, Harry, unwilling to leave without Julie, arranges to meet the group at the airport and jumps from the truck, briefly knocking himself out but regaining consciousness long enough to pull a carjacker and petty thief named Wilson over, hijacking his (stolen) car and bringing Wilson himself along for the ride. When Wilson figures out that a disaster is coming, he urges Harry to allow a brief stop to pick up his little sister, Charlotta, an environmental protester who does activism work near nuclear power plants nearby. While attempting to pump gas, Wilson and Harry are stopped by the police. Wilson spills gasoline on the police, but doesn't expect it when one policewoman fires her gun, accidentally setting herself on fire. Her partner and the gas station owner are also both killed in the process. Harry and Wilson are both guilt-ridden but continue to flee, hijacking the now abandoned police cruiser.

Harry is able to locate Lucy and Ivan, as well as a sleeping Julie (passed out from having taken a Valium), but Wilson abandons them to search for Charlotta. Harry places Julie in a shopping cart, wrapped in a rainbow afghan blanket, and hurries to reach the helipad at the top of the Mutual Benefit Life Building, a tall financial skyscraper building where Landa said to wait for a ride to the main airport. He is saddened when Lucy and Ivan rekindle their romance but decide to drive away, wanting to die together. As Julie awakens, leaving the cart and the afghan behind, she innocently believes that Harry is taking her on a hot air balloon ride. She is horrified to be greeted by two unnamed businesswomen with Arctic clothing and machine guns, but finally learns the truth about the impending apocalypse. Mike, the businessman from the coffee shop, drunkenly waits atop the building for Landa to arrive, unaware that she has already left and probably isn't coming back for him or the other coffee shop patrons. Desperate to reach the airport himself and not having a car, Harry finds a gym rat at a local health club who offers to fly the helicopter for a financial fee, provided that his girlfriend, Leslie, is allowed to come along. They agree to all meet up at the Mutual Benefit Life Building, but unfortunately Julie has also tried to find a pilot on her own, and in the moments it takes for Harry to find her, Los Angeles descends into violent chaos. Wilson and Charlotta are both mortally wounded when they try to pull over to pick up Harry and end up crashing into a department store. After Charlotta dies in Wilson's arms, Wilson begs Harry to shoot him, but dies himself before Harry has to go through with the deed. Harry and Julie leave the deceased friends only to find the outside streets in a traffic jam. Rampant looting, public sex and shooting occur, and Harry has to hide in a storm drain after nearly being shot to death himself. There is still no confirmation that the nuclear holocaust is real, and Harry wonders if he has sparked a massive false panic in the example of Chicken Little. However, when he uses a phone booth to contact the father of the man who called him (using the number of the booth and the area code the man was trying to use), he reaches a man who says his son, Chip, is a soldier. Harry tries to pass on the message he was given, but the man hangs up before Harry finishes.

Julie and Harry meet up again in the elevator of the Mutual Benefit building but fear that they will die before they can reach the helipad. Luckily they make it to the top of the Mutual Benefit building, but they find the pad empty, with only Mike on the roof, drunk and on drugs, awaiting his own fate as Landa has abandoned him there. Any doubts about a false alarm are eliminated when a missile can be seen streaking across the sky. Harry and Julie expect to die there, huddling in the elevator shaft, but they are relieved when the pilot arrives, the gym rat from earlier that morning. He is bleeding heavily and has appeared to have lost Leslie to the violence in the streets below, but he declares that he intends to keep his promise of rescue to his two new friends. After the trio lift off from the roof, several warheads hit and the nuclear electromagnetic pulse from the detonations ruins the controls. The already-injured pilot, dazed and bleeding to death, is unable to save the helicopter and it crashes into the La Brea pits. The pilot is killed instantly on impact, but Harry and Julie are left alive and panicked as the helicopter's cabin fills with natural asphalt tar, which will drown them both. Julie is horrified by all the chances that they had to escape if not for the various events of the past few hours. Harry tries to comfort her by saying that someday their fossils will be found and they will probably be put in a museum, or maybe they will take a direct hit and be turned into diamonds. Julie, accepting her fate, calms down and takes comfort in Harry's words, and the movie fades out as the tar fills the compartment. A final explosion seems to imply a direct hit has taken place, killing the characters.