Fiercely self-reliant ordinary chap scientist Zac Hobson (a marvelously vivid and vibrant performance by Bruno Lawrence) wakes one one fateful morning to discover that a top secret experiment he's been working on called Operation Flashlight has created a lethal tear in the universe that in turn has caused every living creature except Zac to completely disappear. The opening third of this smart, witty, wholly absorbing and wonderfully idiosyncratic science fiction end-of-the-world thriller ingeniously mines a fresh and inspired line in surprising off-center humor. At first the resourceful Zac makes the best of a bad situation by residing in a swanky palatial abode, eating exquisite expensive cuisine and joyfully pillaging an abandoned shopping mall of its choicest material products. Eventually the hopelessness of Zac's wretchedly lonely plight makes him go gloriously off the wall bonkers. Zac talks to himself while playing a solitary game of pool, resorts to wearing a woman's half-slip as his sole article of clothing, declares himself ruler of the planet, blows up a gas station, and, in the film's single most sublimely audacious scene, storms into a derelict church toting a shotgun and threatens to blast a statue of Christ to pieces unless God manifests himself in the flesh for a face-to-face confrontation ("Come out or I'll shoot the kid!").
Alas, this divinely fruitcake nuttiness dissipates when Zac discovers plucky redhead Joanne (radiantly played by the lovely Allison Rutledge) and intimidating mystical Maori native Abi (the commanding Peter Smith). Zac and Abi engage in a predictable mano-a-mano competition to be the sole recipient of Joanne's affections and have an immediate distrust of each other due to racial differences. Fortunately, the plot gets back on suspenseful track when a second possibly more disastrous catastrophe looms on the gloomy horizon, thus forcing our beleaguered trio to take action to prevent this holocaust from wiping out the human race altogether. Geoff Murphy's bang-up direction skillfully creates a potently troubled sense of compelling mystery, places marked emphasis on the engaging characters, makes wisely judicious use of special effects, shifts the tone from playfully funny to grimly serious with remarkable adroitness, and concludes the feature with an unforgettably haunting final image. The bright, wryly preceptive script by Lawrence, Sam Pillsbury and Bill Baer thoughtfully explores man's poignant need for the company of other people in order to retain both sanity and humanity, the human race's deep-seated will to survive no matter what, and the dire consequences beget by mankind's arrogant tampering in delicate areas where he quite frankly does not belong. A splendidly singular and oftentimes stimulating sleeper.
Alas, this divinely fruitcake nuttiness dissipates when Zac discovers plucky redhead Joanne (radiantly played by the lovely Allison Rutledge) and intimidating mystical Maori native Abi (the commanding Peter Smith). Zac and Abi engage in a predictable mano-a-mano competition to be the sole recipient of Joanne's affections and have an immediate distrust of each other due to racial differences. Fortunately, the plot gets back on suspenseful track when a second possibly more disastrous catastrophe looms on the gloomy horizon, thus forcing our beleaguered trio to take action to prevent this holocaust from wiping out the human race altogether. Geoff Murphy's bang-up direction skillfully creates a potently troubled sense of compelling mystery, places marked emphasis on the engaging characters, makes wisely judicious use of special effects, shifts the tone from playfully funny to grimly serious with remarkable adroitness, and concludes the feature with an unforgettably haunting final image. The bright, wryly preceptive script by Lawrence, Sam Pillsbury and Bill Baer thoughtfully explores man's poignant need for the company of other people in order to retain both sanity and humanity, the human race's deep-seated will to survive no matter what, and the dire consequences beget by mankind's arrogant tampering in delicate areas where he quite frankly does not belong. A splendidly singular and oftentimes stimulating sleeper.