MOVIE REVIEW: Mayday
Images courtesy of Apple Original Films
MAYDAY— 2 STARS
Amid the action set pieces and culture-clash shenanigans in Apple Original Films’ Mayday, a haphazardly crocheted moral fiber develops between two men from different countries trying to better understand the other in the Cold War era of 1987. There’s an American hot-shot pilot, Lieutenant Troy Kelly, played by the strapping Ryan Reynolds, supplying his signature motormouth energy, shaped as if he were stamped from the Pete Mitchell mold from the frequently referenced Top Gun. Across from him in this buddy comedy is Kenneth Branagh’s Russian ex-spy Nikolai Ustinov, flaunting a thick put-upon accent and the ruggedly bearded guise of a weathered tough guy.
Fate has brought these two men together after Troy’s black ops reconnaissance mission, riding in the RIO seat of an SR-71 Blackbird, is shot down over the northwestern woods of the Soviet Union, 2000 kilometers from the friendly border of Finland, but only 12 km from Nikolai’s homely cabin. The former KGB agent has tended to Troy’s injuries and makes a handshake deal with the naval aviator to be granted safe passage and asylum in America if he can help Troy escape the pursuing authorities and avoid an international incident.
On the surface of Mayday, Troy fancies himself as the more refined man, exuding and trumpeting American dominance in his every diatribe and stride. He thinks he’s stuck with, essentially, a Siberian hayseed. Eating that up is Nikolai, characterized as a cloistered loner, brewing his own beet-based moonshine and curating an oddly unique obsession with bootlegged Western pop culture, particularly Tony Scott’s 1986 hit blockbuster. Even with that fanboy giddiness, Nikolai thinks an ignorant demigod has landed in his lap.
LESSON #1: REVERSING IMPERFECT IMPRESSIONS— When Troy and Nikolai are not scampering for their lives across planes, trains, and automobiles in Mayday, there are mutual goals of reversing imperfect impressions and learning more—and hopefully better—of one’s enemies. Initially, both semi-proud men try to call out the other as being part of their respective country’s cultural charade. Nikolai begins to see that American coolness and excess might not be the most upstanding attitude, and Troy comes to learn why there is still richness and morality in the perceived strictness of Communist squalor. They get each other wrong and bend towards the common ground of friendship thanks to shared life-and-death situations laid out by Mayday’s cockamamie adventure.
LESSON #2: CALLING OUT STEREOTYPES CAN INADVERTENTLY REINFORCE THEM— Sure, that all sounds nice and fun for a streaming movie to enjoy on the couch at the end of summer, but 2026 might not be the best time to refill Rocky IV’s “If I can change, you can change” prescription to cure American-Russian relations. Having walking Hollywood stereotypes play walking Cold War stereotypes that try to call out and correct actual historical stereotypes turns into a fruitless exercise that ends up reinforcing all three layers of those uncorrected tropes. Even when these two main characters diverge slightly from their norms, they are surrounded by all the other tired caricatures, meaning everyone who came into Mayday pretending ends up still pretending.
Mayday is the latest action comedy from the Game Night and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves hitmaking team of Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, collaborating with a bankrolling boost from Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort production house. For the bulk of the film’s 111 minutes, the director duo spares no expense to keep the cinematic tachometer high with a merry chase between our unlikely allies and the pursuing Soviet heel, Alexander Volkov (Marcin Dorociński of The Queen’s Gambit and the final two Mission: Impossible films). Their hired cinematographer-of-choice, Barry Peterson (working with Daley and Goldstein for a fourth time), has a ball playing with drastic angle changes, high boom/jib moves, overhead scope, split diopter shots, and VFX dolly assistance to make his camera appear to pass through windows and doors alongside its busy subjects on the run.
Peterson’s spry lens catches all the landed punches orchestrated by Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 fight coordinator Loyd Bateman and the squad of stunt doubles present to keep the headlining 49-year-old Canadian treasure and 65-year-old Irish delight safe and sound from suspending disbelief in their canvas set chairs. On the ground, the commandeered vehicles, including, at one point, a TEL heavy truck bearing a nuclear ICBM, barreling through the property-damage obstacles set by second unit director and Greenland stunt coordinator Brad Martin and Backrooms stunt rigger Kai Hirvonen, add the kind of mayhem one is looking for in this genre. The extra icing on the smooth and shiny Mayday cake comes from the badass jet moves dialed up by The Mandalorian and Grogu aerial coordinator Frédéric North and his DP Dylan Goss.
For a movie that looks this docile and polished, it’s, therefore, shockingly amazing how punchless Mayday is, especially compared to the swagger and acidic wit these extremely capable directors were celebrated for in their last two films. With a PG-13 rating in place for the widest casual audience, the growing body count and gauntlet-throwing threats feel meaningless against the smiling, indestructible heroes. Likewise, with little peril in play, the comedic ball-busting and competitive burns feel tame rather than desperate or dangerous. Even when that woven string of chestnuts dangles the rainbow of international friendship—or the callback comuppance payoff addressing decades of denied military-caused cancer cases embodied by a wasted David Morse playing Reynold’s ailing father back home—the extra commentary is as soft as melted ice cream. The result is a completely disposable time capsule that would have played like gangbusters thirty years ago, more than now.
LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#1426)
