Thanks to Top Gun, 1987 was a fun year to be a Naval aviator—except for Lt.
Troy “Assassin” Kelly. He will be shot down over the Soviet Union flying a top-secret
spy flight. Those who understand Navy tradition know call signs are created to
be mockingly ironic, so “Assassin” is probably ill-suited for behind enemy lines
urban warfare. However, he meets a Russian with precisely such a skillset.
Whether he can fully trust mysterious Nikolai Ustinov is another question in
director-screenwriters John Francis Daley & Jonathan Goldstein’s Mayday,
which premieres Friday on Apple TV+.
The super
high-tech spy flight will be crewed by a humorless, uptight Air Force pilot and
a wise-cracking, flying-by-the-seat-of-his pants Naval aviator. Logically, the
Naval aviator will be played by Ryan Reynolds. Tragically, Captain Sanders will
not survive the crash. As it happens, the ejection shakes up Kelly pretty badly
as well, but Ustinov, a bushy haired recluse, successfully performs the
necessary treatment in his cabin.
Although
rustic, Ustinov’s home is filled with American pop culture contraband, including
a bootleg copy of Top Gun that plays almost constantly. Given his enthusiasm
for America, Ustinov assures Kelly that he will not turn him over to the KGB. Nevertheless,
he is reluctant to help the pilot escape from the USSR, because he fully understands
the dangers that would entail—only too well. After all, Ustinov used to serve in
the KGB, before his estranged daughter’s conscience shamed him into retirement.
The
stakes are higher than either man realizes, because KGB spymaster Alexander Volkov
intends to use Kelly to discredit Glasnost and undermine Gorbachev. Of course,
he must capture “Assassin” before he can extract a false confession of
attempted assassination.
As
action comedies go, Mayday does a fairly nice job balancing the laughs
with the mayhem. Most of grizzled old Ustinov’s fight scenes have a comedic
tone, but the hard-charging stunt work is still impressive. Staging the big
set-piece chase scene amid the annual militaristic May Day parade represents a
flash of subversive inspiration. There are also two nicely executed aerial scenes.
Not
surprisingly, Reynolds talks a mile-a-minute as Kelly, but he has a facility
for such one-liners. Kelly’s loving and dutiful relationship with his cancer-stricken
father Harold also greatly humanizes the hotshot pilot. Plus, Kenneth Branagh
clearly had jolly good time playing the lethal Ustinov, who looks like Rasputin,
but fights like John Wick.
Maria
Balakova is fine, but unremarkable as Anna Ustinov. In contrast, David Morse
brings more dignity and pathos to ailing Kelly Sr. than viewers have a right to
expect from a jokey buddy-movie. Polish thesp Marcin Dorocinski is convincingly
cold and calculating as Volkov, notably playing against type, since he is known
for films like Jack Strong and Rose, which incisively critiqued oppressive
Communist-era Polish regime.
There are two types of super-soldiers in the movies. There is the virtuous Steve
Rogers type (a.k.a. Captain America), who realizes the technology that strengthened
him is too dangerous to ever use again. Then there are the super-psychos, like
Dolph Lundgren in Universal Soldiers. Don’t you miss Air Force Colonel
Steve Austin, the “Bionic Man?” It hardly needs to be said considering the key
art, but these super-soldiers will be the crazy homicidal kind, who meet a surprisingly
resourceful opponent in Adam Wingard’s Onslaught, which opens Friday in
theaters.
Apparently,
Dr. Hans Kammler is one of those National Socialist scientists America brought
over after WWII, some eighty years ago, or maybe a descendant, or a spiritual
heir? Anyway, he is a creepy doctor working on a super soldier research
program, using three of the absolute dirtiest military prisoners available. Of
course, they get lose, because Kammler’s team forgets their abilities to slow
their hearts rates mere minutes after someone mentions it.
Having
sprung themselves, the terrible trio are heading in a straight line towards the
Windy Oasis Trailer Park, managed by Celeste. Although she exhibits antisocial
behavior resulting from PTSD, she still loves her daughter Daisy, who was just
dropped off for a surprise weekend with her mom. Celeste has a fully stocked
gun rack, but it will take more than bullets to stop the deranged killers known
as “The Butcher,” “The Cockroach,” and “The Crybaby.” Pervy molly-popping
secret agent Cyrus has been activated to handle the situation, but the deep
state military industrial complex wants him to observe Kammler’s work in the
field rather than save lives. That means Celeste and her Windy Oasis neighbors
are on their own.
It is not
just super-soldiers. It seems Hollywood can only portray two types of veteran characters,
both of which are stereotypes. They can either be tormented victims of PTSD or
unhinged psychopaths. Frustratingly, they are never allowed to function as
productive members of society while they work on their issues. They must be symbols
for something darker. Obviously, Wingard and co-writer Simon Barrett indulge
both stereotypes.
Indeed,
the anti-veteran bias of Onslaught is pernicious and pervasive, which is
a real downer. It is a shame, because Wingard has a talent for staging gory,
over-the-top action scenes. However, the best thing Wingard and company
accomplish is the creation of a real sense of community in Windy Oasis. This is
a place worth fighting for. Indeed, the chemistry between Celeste and her
Vietnam vet neighbor Reginald VelJohnson (Sgt. Al Powell in the Die Hard movies)
is almost redemptive.
What do you do when you suddenly find yourself in a war, not of your country’s
making? If you are like the Ukrainians, you carry on. You also document the
atrocities around you. There have been many documentaries preserving a visual record
of the carnage and destruction wrought by Putin’s invasion. Yet, just about each
and every one of them finds new and revealing material to mine. From the nation’s
perspective, that is probably more of a curse than a blessing. Regardless, Olha
Zhurba shows the world what war means to average Ukrainians in her documentary Songs
of Slow Burning Earth, which premieres tomorrow on OVID.tv.
Perhaps
the most striking sequences incorporate real emergency service calls recorded
on the night of the invasion, reporting massive explosions. Imagine what you would
do if that happened to your neighborhood. If you were a 911 operator in such a
situation, how would you respond?
Although
Zhurba employs almost no traditional interview techniques, there are segments
that are so moving, they should shame decent viewers. The sight of dozens,
maybe even hundreds of provincial Ukrainians kneeling along a winding highway
as a fallen soldier is carried to his final resting place, is nothing less than
devastating. Did the Queens soldier who recently died from an Iranian attack receive
a similar show of respect in New York City?
