Movie Review: Daylight (1996)

Synopsis: A vehicle accident and explosion cause a tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey underneath the Hudson River to collapse, trapping people inside with a fire and toxic chemicals. With few options because of the unstable condition of the tunnel, New York's recently fired Emergency Medical Services chief, Kit Latura, volunteers to enter through an air vent and try to find a way to guide the survivors to safety. This proves to a be a near-impossible task, especially when those above ground decide to start the cleanup process even though it would mean killing anyone left inside.

Who's in it? The movie stars Sylvester Stallone, Amy Brenneman, Viggo Mortensen, Karen Young and Stan Shaw.

Review: After spending several minutes trying to pick a movie to watch last night, I decided to go with something familiar and selected Daylight. It's a film I had seen before but not for some time and my wife couldn't remember if she had ever watched it. After viewing it again, I have to say the movie is even better than I remembered.

The thing I like about this movie is it is a true action film. There's a brief introduction to the main characters then the main plot happens and there's not much in terms of pauses after that. When the survivors aren't trying to avoid dying via an explosion or collapse, there are a wide range of other dangers they face, including everything from flooding tunnels to a herd of rats.

The main protagonist, Kit (Stallone), is a great fit for this film too. He has the skills to make it believable he is the one person who can find an exit from the tunnel while, at the same time, has a checkered past and has made poor decisions that led to people dying, resulting in him now being a cab driver rather than any sort of official emergency management person.

Another thing I liked about this film was how it does a great job with the supporting cast as well, giving them just enough depth to make it easy to care if they lived or died. It was also a great mix of personalities, ranging from people who would follow Kit blindly to those who questioned and argued with every decision he made. And to be fair to the latter, some of the decisions he did make, including leaving one behind to die, were somewhat questionable. This, in turn, made the film better by not having him be perfect.

I did have mixed opinions about the ending. While it did a great job setting up quite a bit of suspense relating to Kit and one of the other survivors, making it look as though they had a very good chance of dying in the tunnel, their attempted escape also seemed a bit farfetched and like something that should have resulted in them, at minimum, getting some serious injuries. In other words, it was cool but also not very believable.

Final Opinion: This is a good action movie with the characters facing near impossible odds and very little in terms of downtime once the main plot begins. It's worth taking the time to watch or re-watch.

My Grade: A

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