Mayday (2005) (TV)

User Rating:

5.0/10   

Director:

T.J. Scott

Writers (WGA):

Kevin Lund (teleplay) &
T.J. Scott (teleplay) ...

Release Date:

2 October 2005 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Drama

Plot:

Twelve miles above the Pacific Ocean, an errant missile strikes a state of the art passenger jet. The flight crew is crippled or dead. Now, defying both nature and man, a handful of survivors must achieve the impossible: Land the airplane. |

Plot Keywords:

Based On Novel

Cast

Aidan Quinn	...	John Berry
Kelly Hu	...	Sharon Crandall
Dean Cain	...	Commander James Slan
Charles S. Dutton	...	Admiral Randolf Hennings
Michael Murphy	...	Captain Randall Williams
Gail O'Grady	...	Anne Metz
Sasha Roiz	...	Wayne Johnson
Richard Fitzpatrick	...	Jack Miller
Tamara Hope	...	Linda Farley
Gabriel Hogan	...	Daniel McVary
Victoria Pratt	...	Simms
Ron Lea	...	Harold Stein
Matt Aquin	...	David Henderson
Martin Roach	...	Carl Fessell
Matt Gordon	...	Carson Evans

Runtime:

120 min (including commercials) | South Africa:87 min (approx)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS)

Goofs:

Factual errors: In the film the decompression of the aircraft lasts at least three minutes, and is described as an "Explosive Decompression". In reality a decompression classed as "Explosive" lasts just 0.1 SECONDS. Also a hole five feet across decompresses an aircraft in a fraction of a second.

Sanitized disaster.

This film may have been less far-fetched than the Nelson DeMille/Thomas Block novel on which it is based, but it lacked the tension which the authors provided so well. Director T.J. Scott was obviously constrained by the network-television format, which allowed little blood and no coarse language, but he should have let the main characters look increasingly unkempt and sweaty after the accident. Other mistakes included a pure-padding subplot involving several characters who weren't in the book, and a weak ending.

I gave this a 5 because the cast members did their best, the effects were good for a TV-movie, and there were a few nice touches (at one point the film made reference to a change of terminology between the 1978 and 1997 versions of the novel). It's sad, though, that "Mayday" never got a big-budget blockbuster treatment.

-Tony