If the end of the world was nigh, how would you spend your last hours? That's the question posed by this small-budget, but big-thinking Canadian movie, and unlike last year's SFX-heavy Armageddon and Deep Impact, Last Night doesn't try to save the world: although the reason for Earth's destruction is not revealed, the end is never in doubt.
With this fait accompli, writer/director Don McKellar is free to follow his Toronto citizens as they decide very different ways to die. A family tries to relive a happy Christmas; a single man indulges his favourite sexual fantasies; a gas company executive (a quirky cameo by David Cronenberg) phones every home in the city, assuring last-minute service; a couple makes a suicide pact; and thousands attend the rave to end all raves.
Perhaps the most low-key disaster movie ever made, this eschews the gee-whizz spectacle or laughs of Armageddon for thought-provoking sentiments that will move you far more.
