On Screen: “Mayday”
Mayday
“Mayday” premiered on Apple TV earlier this month and has already become one of the most watched action-buddy comedies of the season.
Set in 1987, Ryan Reynolds stars as cocky U.S. Navy pilot Troy ‘Assassin’ Kelly who is forced to eject from his top-secret Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird spy plane to avoid a deadly collision over the Siberian forest during the last days of the Cold War.
Wounded and stranded behind the Iron Curtain nearly 2,000 miles from the nearest international border, he’s befriended by Kenneth Branagh, playing Nikolai ‘Nik’ Ustinov, an eccentric ex-KGB officer who is obsessed with American pop culture and dreams of defecting with his estranged daughter Anna (Maria Bakalova).
(There’s a “Top Gun” poster in Ustinov’s rustic cabin along with a bootleg VHS copy of the film — immediately igniting comparisons between hunky, clean-cut Troy Kelly and Tom Cruise’s swaggering fighter pilot Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell.)
Meanwhile in Moscow, ruthless Alexander Volkov (Marien Dorocinski), a high-ranking KGB agent, is determined to capture Kelly before he can seek asylum at the American Embassy.
Crediting cinematographer Barry Peterson, the action sequences are superb — from Kelly’s parachute descent into snow-covered wilderness to cleverly choreographed hand-to-hand fights and the heist of a nuclear missile transport truck, culminating in a huge Red Army parade, complete with Soviet tanks.
What makes it great fun to watch is the charming chemistry between sarcastic, wise-cracking Reynolds and gruff, deadpan Branagh. Their mismatched odd-couple bickering masks an unlikely friendship.
Charismatic Branagh steals the picture, subtly revealing regret beneath the comedy. Best known for his Shakespearean roles, 65-year-old Branagh is remarkably adroit in the physicality of a badass action hero. (Think Jason Statham and Liam Neeson.)
The partnership of writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley first claim to cinematic fame was the crowd-pleasing thriller “Game Night” (2018), followed by “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” (2023). Now they’re working on a new “Star Trek” movie that’s pitched as “Training Day meets Crimson Dawn,” breathing new life into that popular franchise.
Full Disclosure: My son, Don Granger, was one of the Skydance producers.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Mayday” is an exciting, smartly savvy 8, streaming on Apple TV.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.