Mayday: Reynolds and Branagh Are the Best Duo of the Year

Mayday is the most fun I have had watching something in a while, and I did not expect that going in. It is a Cold War buddy action comedy with Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh, it landed on Apple TV without much noise, and it is better than it has any business being. Between this, Coyote vs. Acme and The Dog Stars, it has been an unusually good stretch.

Apple keeps quietly making good films. At this point they should think about giving up the computers and doing this full time. That is a joke, mostly.

The Setup

It is 1987. Reynolds plays Troy Kelly, an American pilot flying an SR-71 Blackbird on a reconnaissance run over Soviet territory. The mission goes wrong, he goes down, and he is suddenly on foot in the Russian wilderness with the Red Army looking for him. He is found by Nikolai Ustinov, played by Branagh, a former KGB man with an unembarrassed love of American culture. Neither of them should trust the other. They have to get Troy out of the country anyway.

That is a shape you have seen before and the film knows it. Critics have been reaching for Midnight Run as the comparison and it is the right one. What matters in this kind of film is not the plot, it is whether you want to keep watching the two of them talk. Here you do.

Branagh Is the Surprise

Reynolds does what Reynolds does, and I will come back to that, but Branagh is the thing nobody warned me about. He plays Nick completely deadpan, heavily bearded, entirely committed, and he steals scene after scene. He is also genuinely convincing in the action, which is not where you expect to find him. The man directed Henry V and here he is throwing punches on a plane with the door open, and he sells it.

The chemistry is the whole film. Two men who are supposed to be on opposite sides of history, stuck together, gradually enjoying each other’s company more than either wants to admit. When a duo works this well you stop caring whether the story is inevitable.

Budapest Playing Moscow, and Playing It Well

The film was shot largely in Hungary, and the Soviet world it builds is convincing enough that I did not question it while watching. That is the whole job. Heroes’ Square in Budapest stands in for Red Square, helped along with digital work, and the villages and forests carry the rest.

This is harder than people think. Doubling a location is not just finding a building with the right silhouette, it is controlling everything at the edges of frame: signage, vehicles, the colour of the light, the way people are dressed in the deep background. Get one of those wrong and the audience feels it before they can name it. It is the same discipline that separates convincing aerial and location work from the kind that quietly announces itself as fake. Barry Peterson’s photography holds it together, and the winter light does a lot of the work.

The Action, and That Vehicle

The aerial work is excellent and it looks properly expensive, which is worth saying about a film with a reported budget around $25 million. The Blackbird material in particular is convincing in a way that a lot of bigger productions are not.

And then there is the chase with the nuclear missile launcher. I will not spoil how they end up driving one, but it is exactly the right kind of ridiculous: a real, heavy, absurd machine used for a purpose it was never designed for, played completely straight by the people inside it. Action comedy lives or dies on that distinction. The situation is funny, the characters are not doing bits. This film gets that right almost every time.

The Return of Ryan Reynolds

This feels like a return, and I think it is fair to call it that. Reynolds kept a low profile for a stretch while he was drawn into litigation that was eventually dismissed. Whatever the reason, he has not led something this loose and this enjoyable in a while.

His signature is all over it. The one-liners land at the rate you expect, the timing is intact, and the humour has that slightly dark, self-aware edge he has been doing since long before Deadpool. He is also a producer here through Maximum Effort, so the voice in the film is not an accident.

There is a moment in the forest involving a goose that I took as a wink at his being Canadian. Watching it again, I suspect it is doing double duty, because this is a film about a fighter pilot that is openly in conversation with Top Gun, and Top Gun had a Goose of its own. Either reading works. Both at once is better.

Give Us a Second One

My only real complaint matches the critics: this should have been in cinemas. It is built at a scale that deserves a big room and an audience laughing together, and instead it went straight to streaming. Several reviewers made the same point and they are right.

Beyond that, I want more. This is a duo I would happily watch in another film, and the ending leaves room. If Apple is listening, make the second one, and put it in theatres.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Mayday about?

In 1987, American pilot Troy Kelly is shot down over Soviet territory during a reconnaissance mission and has to escape the country with the help of Nikolai Ustinov, a former KGB agent. It is a Cold War buddy action comedy.

Who stars in Mayday?

Ryan Reynolds as Troy Kelly and Kenneth Branagh as Nikolai Ustinov, with Marcin Dorocinski as Alexander Volkov, Maria Bakalova as Anna Ustinov, David Morse as Harold Kelly and Clark Johnson.

Where can I watch Mayday?

It is streaming on Apple TV. It was not given a wide theatrical release, which several critics, and this one, think was a mistake.

Where was Mayday filmed?

Largely in Hungary. Heroes’ Square in Budapest doubles for Red Square in Moscow, with digital effects filling in the rest.

How long is Mayday?

Around 110 minutes. It was written and directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley.

Will there be a Mayday 2?

Nothing has been announced. The reception has been strong and the pairing clearly works, so a sequel would not be a surprise, but at the time of writing it is speculation.

Cast and Crew

References and Further Reading

• The Hollywood Reporter review.
• The Variety review.
• The Deadline review, on why it belonged in cinemas.
• Mayday on TMDB, cast and crew data.