Upon learning that her son has leukemia and needs a transfusion from a perfectly compatible donor, British doctor Samantha Sheppard (Kate Ashfield) is forced not only to tell her husband (Hugo Speer) that he isn’t the boy’s real dad, but also to locate the biological father, a dangerous Australian criminal recently escaped from prison. This 2001 Australian miniseries, edited down to a fast-moving hour and a half, borrowed its premise from Desperate Measures, a 1998 Hollywood flop starring Michael Keaton. It has the emotional urgency and frenetic pace of Run Lola Run but narrowly misses being a really good movie.

Shelf Talk: Winner of two awards (from the Australian Film Institute and the Australian Writers Guild), Do or Die got limited exposure on European TV but has no profile whatsoever here in the U.S. Given the absence of recognizable stars, you’ll need to push this one as another every-minute-counts thriller along the thematic and stylistic lines of Crank and Run Lola Run.