The bad guys in Top Gun are not Russians. In fact, they’re not anyone.
Everyone watching Top Gun in 1987 assumed they were connected in some way to the Soviet Union, because the bad guys in every ’80s action movie were communists of some sort. But Top Gun never named the country its sinister “MiGs” came from. The pilots who dogfight Tom Cruise’s Maverick are never seen behind their dark helmets. They’re just bad guys; utterly faceless and as generic and as free of politics as possible.
The new film Mayday puts a face to those bad guys. It asks what would happen if a Russian military man watched Top Gun and then encountered the real-world equivalent of Maverick. And apparently the answer to that question is … the Soviet would fall so madly in love with American values that they would join the pilot on a wacky misadventure to escape from Russia?
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That’s the premise of Mayday, which smashes Top Gun, Midnight Run, and a dash of a Yakov Smirnoff standup set into an absurd and occasionally amusing buddy movie. Its Tom Cruise analog is a US Navy pilot named Troy Kelly, AKA “Assassin” (Ryan Reynolds), whose incredible aerial skill lands him an assignment flying a top-secret mission over hostile Soviet airspace.
Despite Troy’s numerous warnings, his cocky copilot on the flight promptly crashes their SR-71 Blackbird. Troy survives, but is badly wounded deep in enemy territory. Lucky for him, he’s found by Nikolai Ustinov (Kenneth Branagh), a retired KGB man living in the woods with a basement full of bear meet, homemade booze, and a bootleg VHS copy of Top Gun. The glory of Tony Scott action and Kenny Loggins music has not only made “Nick” feel the need for speed; it’s made him see the light. Despite what his superiors and the government told him to believe about the United States, he’s come to recognized that America is actually a land of opportunity, freedom, and men serenading women with Righteous Brothers songs. With that, Nick offers to help Troy get back home.
Naturally, their journey becomes a highway to the Danger Zone, with the duo pursued by the entire might of the Russian military. Some of these chase scenes, directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, deserve credit for their ingenuity. I’ve seen a lot of buddy comedies in my life, but this may be the first that includes a chase involving a nuclear weapon transport vehicle. There are also way more (and way slicker) hand-to-hand fight scenes in Mayday than Top Gun or any of its comparable ’80s contemporaries, with Troy and Nick battling each other and many Russian soldiers and cops with flurries of complex martial arts moves, captured in impressive long takes.
In some ways, though, Mayday’s action scenes work against its goal of recreating the vibe of classic ’80s action. The elaborate MMA throws and strikes on display look totally anarchonistic — as do most of Ryan Reynolds’ handsome winter woodsman ensembles as Nick. From top to bottom, Mayday’s period details throughout feels off. (Then again I don’t know much about agrarian Russian living in the 1980s; maybe everyone dressed like LL Bean catalog models back then.)
Reynolds’ typical schtick doesn’t quite suit the film either. Constantly peppering his dialogue with Deadpool-style quips, he doesn’t make a very convincing Navy pilot — something the film itself acknowledges in a scene where Nick tries to reconcile with his estranged daughter (Borat 2’s Maria Bakalova). After Troy, a childless bachelor, offers him some extremely perceptive advice, Nick replies “Are all fighter pilots as sensitive as you?” (“Yes,” Reynolds deadpans back.)
At least Branagh is having a good time. And why shouldn’t he? He gets to play a Russian dude who looks like Grizzly Adams and fights like Jason Bourne. It’s a plum role for an actor who’s never really had a chance to become an action hero before, and he seizes it with relish. Once you accept the flimsy reality of the relationship between Reynolds and Branagh, it’s easy to get swept up in their lively rapport.
Mayday wants to embrace all the big dumb fun of ’80s action, while at leat nodding a little to the political realities that movies like Top Gun tried to elide. Troy fashions himself as an American patriot. He loves his country and genuinely believes it is a moral force for good in the world. Then he meets Nick, and other ordinary Russians, and learns they are not as evil as he thought.
That’s a nice sentiment, although it might have landed with more oomph in a story that didn’t also feature cartoonishly mean Russian villains like Marcin Dorociński’s KGB officer, or a script that shifts into third-act schmaltz, with lines like “Right now the only way to stand up for my country is to stand up to it.” It adds up to a bumpy but not entirely disagreeable ride with a very rocky landing.
Additional Thoughts
-Goldstein and Daley rely on a lot of shots where the camera glides through seemingly solid windows. I suppose this technique adds some visual excitement to dialogue scenes that might otherwise look a little staid. For me, though, cameras that constantly phase through solid objects only serve to emphasize the unreality of everything onscreen. It almost always takes me out of a scene — as it did repeatedly in Mayday.
-Ryan Reynolds drinking game concept: Take a shot any time his character in this or any film complains about someone violating their personal space. (i.e. “You are scorching my ear with the heat of your breath!”) Mayday went straight to Apple TV, so you don’t even have to worry about a designated driver to take you home after the movie is over.
RATING: 5/10
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