By Geno McGahee
I love disaster movies. Considering that Sylvester Stallone has done just about every genre, it was only a matter of time before he tried his hand at a disaster film. They were trending at the time. There was TWISTER, DEEP IMPACT, TITANIC, INDEPENDENCE DAY, VOLCANO and DANTE’S PEAK all within a couple of years. So, it made sense to go in this direction and the movie made money. On a 90 million dollar budget, DAYLIGHT brought in 160 million.
We begin with some punks robbing a guy with a suitcase handcuffed to his wrist. They cut the chain and take off, opening it up and realizing that there are diamonds inside. I would think that they would have known what they were stealing and I also wondered what the fuck punks from the 80s were doing in 1996.
In the meantime, a trucker is hired to transport some toxic waste for big money to avoid any fines or something along those lines. They are headed for the New York tunnel and so are the punks with the diamonds. There’s also a police bus full of inmates because…why not?
Madelyne (Amy Brenneman), a writer, is sick of living in the Big Apple with the rats and without becoming the star writer she hoped to be, is packing up and leaving. Her only relationship is with a married man and that isn’t going too well. So, add her to the mix of people bound for the tunnel.
The fearless adventurer, Roy Nord (Viggo Mortensen), is also on his way to the tunnel, having all sorts of business to tend to. I think he sells rock climbing shit. Perhaps this is a sequel to CLIFFHANGER. It would have been awesome if Stallone looked at him and said “your faulty equipment killed my friend you bitch.” What depth that would have added to this film.
Working in the tunnel is George (Stan Shaw) and he’s ready to tell the girl he works with that he loves her. He’s finally going to admit it and live happily ever after. So, you know this dude is going to die. You need casualties in a disaster film and they can’t all be bad guys. You need a few good people dead so you feel sad and feel more hope for the remaining survivors.
Cheating husband, Steven (Jay O. Sanders), his angry wife, Sarah (Karen Young), and their disappointed daughter, Ashley (Danielle Harris), are going on vacation or something. I forget. As you can tell, there’s all sorts of shit going on and the punks from 1983 with the diamonds had my attention over some asshole that couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.
Kit Latura (Stallone) is a limo driver and has a couple that need to get to the airport and are on their way to the tunnel and that’s when all hell breaks loose. The punks from 1983 get into a big car wreck with the toxic waste drum trucks and sets off a huge explosion. It blocks up half the tunnel and burns a bunch of people to death immediately. Outside of the tunnel, Kit goes into action, which is strange for a limo driver to do. Stranger, the EMTs and others are doing exactly what he says. If a limo driver tells me what to do, I’ll kick him in the fucking balls.
It turns out that Latura was the chief of police and was fired over a scandal, but he still has the respect of his peers, except the new chief, Wilson (Mark Rolston). That was the same guy from SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION that raped Tim Robbins. I know that he was just acting, but I can’t watch him in any other role without suspecting him of rape. Stallone was walking a smidge funny in this, so I suspect that Wilson was still one of the “sisters” from Shawshank. Don’t worry, (spoiler) Wilson dies after about 2 lines in this.
Latura finds his way into the tunnel to help the people and, despite that, he’s getting shit. Sarah keeps harping on him about the scandal and will not shut the fuck up. He should have put her against the wall and told her that he was going to give her “a war she won’t believe.” He moves on and then her cheating ass husband starts going off, leading Kit to say “meet me halfway.” That had to be a reference to OVER THE TOP. I don’t know why, but, for some reason, they wanted to have some connection to that film. At least we didn’t have to puke our way through any music by Kenny Loggins this time.
The film follows the same formula that all disaster films follow. The group goes through a ton of shit. I felt bad for them all, but I especially felt bad for Ashley. She was in HALLOWEEN 4 and 5 and had to deal with Michael Myers chasing her all over the place and then deals with this disaster and then one of the inmates from the prison bus asks her out. Will she ever get a break?
There is a race against time as water starts to fill the tunnel and I started to see some influence from POSEIDON ADVENTURE. They seemed to have borrowed a lot in certain scenes, but if you’re going to borrow, there’s not many disaster films that are better to take from. Kit continues to lead the way and starts telling Madelyne about his mistake the cost lives. The two seem to kick it off, but she’s a head case. Apparently, that cheating husband Steve is the guy that she’s been boning. Small world. She is still stuck on him a bit and I don’t think that she and Kit would have a healthy relationship.
(SPOILER) George dies. I didn’t want George to die, but the way he died, I couldn’t feel bad for him. After a small victory, he stood there with his arms in the air, celebrating. He was screaming and smiling and then a truck fell on him. I couldn’t help but to think that the mother fucker had it coming. You don’t celebrate until you’re out of that fucking tunnel.
DAYLIGHT is a paint by numbers disaster film but Sly brings something different to it. I don’t always give Stallone a lot of credit, but he was the right guy for this film and turned a routine disaster film into a decent one. I really enjoyed this film and it checked all the boxes for disaster and action with enough good characters to keep me involved. I recommend it.
