We live in a world with seemingly infinite entertainment options, arriving faster than any of us can keep up. I remember when a major streaming release felt like an event. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman was one of those movies you knew was coming, and you made plans to watch it. Those moments still happen, but with so many services and so much content, even a movie that catches your attention can end up with the same response: “Maybe I’ll watch that. Just not right now.”
If that’s your thought about Mayday, the new Apple TV movie starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh, erase it. Move this one to the top of your queue.
I saw advance footage at an Apple TV event in Los Angeles earlier this year and thought, “That looks kind of cute. Maybe I’ll check it out.” This weekend, at the urging of someone who was insistent that I watch it, I finally decided, “What the hell?” Ten minutes into the movie, I was hooked.
Written and directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein, Mayday takes place in 1987, during the Cold War. Reynolds plays Lieutenant Troy “Assassin” Kelly, a U.S. Navy pilot whose top-secret mission goes horribly wrong, leaving him stranded in the Soviet wilderness. I won’t spoil the origin of that call sign, but it becomes a major talking point in the movie.
Troy is taken in by Nikolai Ustinov, played by Branagh, a former KGB agent with an absolute fascination with the United States. Nick dreams of making it to the land of the free. More specifically, he wants to get to the land where they made Top Gun, a movie he treasures on a bootleg copy.
Naturally, these two don’t immediately see eye to eye. Troy wants to escape, and trusting a former KGB agent isn’t exactly his first choice. But once he realizes he needs Nick’s help to get home, he promises to help get him to America, too. What follows is a sprawling adventure through Soviet territory with two very different men trying to reach the same destination.
You’ve seen some version of this setup before. Two unlikely partners run from the bad guys, get on each other’s nerves, and work toward an eventual goal. There’s a formula here, absolutely. But a familiar story can still be a great time if the people telling it know what they’re doing.
For me, the standard for a buddy action comedy is Midnight Run. If we’re measuring these movies on a hardness scale, Midnight Run is the diamond. It’s perfect. You can’t improve upon it. I love what movies like 48 Hrs. and Rush Hour bring to the genre, but Midnight Run remains the one I measure everything against.
Mayday is no Midnight Run, but it’s a hell of a lot of fun.
Reynolds is back to his regular tricks, which means being distractingly handsome and hilariously quick with a comeback. If you enjoy that version of Ryan Reynolds, you’ll be happy here. Branagh, meanwhile, makes a very believable former KGB agent while giving Nick enough warmth that you care about his dream of reaching America. The pairing works, and the movie gives both actors plenty to play with.
Some major action set pieces give Mayday a sense of scale, but the smart comedy writing is what really stayed with me. One sequence has Troy and Nick break into a Russian dignitary’s home to get a device they need for their mission, and what follows is cringe and hilarious. That is all I’m going to tell you about it.
The ensuing scene is one of the smartest and funniest comedic sequences I’ve seen in a movie in quite some time. The situation is clear, the comedy is strong, and I was cackling out loud. It’s a scene worth discovering for yourself, and one you’ll remember afterward.
The historical backdrop adds another layer. By 1987, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had already met at the Reykjavík summit in Iceland on October 11–12, 1986. They discussed sweeping nuclear arms reductions but left without an agreement. Diplomacy was moving, yet the United States and Soviet Union remained adversaries. One summit hadn’t erased decades of suspicion.
The movie does ask you to accept some pretty unbelievable things. An American military hero risking everything for a former KGB agent and trying to bring him to the United States during the Cold War is a lot to buy into. But within the world Mayday creates, I bought it. The friendship gives the adventure enough emotional weight that I was happy to go along for the ride.
There’s some definite cheese here, plenty of Top Gun affection, real laughs and enough heartfelt moments to make you care about these characters. I also appreciated the movie’s patriotism. It has a gentle, welcoming quality, particularly through Nick’s affection for America. It never felt overly political or sappy.
I thought Mayday was well written, well executed and well acted. It’s easy to imagine scrolling past it, or adding it to a watchlist you never quite get around to. Give it the evening instead.
Mayday delivers a safe landing for its characters and its audience. A solid recommend.
Mayday is now streaming on Apple TV.
