Mayday

This movie does not do justice to the original book from which it was taken. About 30 years ago Tom Block's name was on the cover, and he was credited with this original book. Recently his friend and fellow writer Nelson DeMille put his name on it. The movie barely mentions Tom Block. Tom is a retired airline pilot who knows his stuff. Read the book to see that. We can guess why this was done. Some asked about afterburners and rapid or explosive decompression. Read the book, but there was a lot of funny things going on in the film with all this. Funny and dumb to a pilot. Even with so many changes it was a half way interesting film. Too bad it might take readers away from the re-released book when it ought to help to make a lot more. Film viewers will be more than pleasantly surprised if they do read Tom Block's book (well, I guess Nelson DeMille did have a good part in the writing, after all he got his name on it finally). See the film, but definitely read the book.

This is a film that has the mark of an effort which runs as if it is a mini-series but suddenly realizes that, "Hey, our two-hour allotment is almost up, better end this thing quick." The first half of the film runs well, and engrosses the viewer, but there are too many threads left dangling and not enough time to tie them up neatly. What happens to the insurance people who want the plane to crash so that they can wiggle out of liability? What happens on Wake Island? Will the report go in about the errant missile? And wasn't the missile still intact when it hit the plane? How will they explain that? Too many holes and a movie that needed to run three hours at the least.

This film may have been less far-fetched than the Nelson DeMille/Thomas Block novel on which it is based, but it lacks the tension which the authors provided so well. Director T.J. Scott is obviously constrained by the network-television format, which allows little blood and no coarse language -- still, he should have let the main characters look increasingly unkempt and sweaty after the accident. Other mistakes include a subplot involving several characters who weren't in the book, and some weakly interpreted villains (Johnson suffers the most; where is his swagger and sardonic humor).

This rates a 5 because the cast members do their best, the effects are good for a TV-movie, and there are a few nice touches (at one point the film refers 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

If I hadn't read the book, I would have liked the movie better. The movie deleted much of the "controversal" stuff from the book and it muddied what happened to the passengers. There were technical errors about flying that were sloppy: why have the controller give a take off clearance twice when one should have been a taxi clearance. And what was with the group in the conference room on the plane? Totally unnecessary, wasn't in the book, added nothing to the movie. Aidan Quinn and Kelly Hu were good, not to sappy. Quinn was pretty faithful to the written character of the "weekend" pilot. Dean Cain was miss-cast. I don't see him as amoral as his character was supposed to be.

I saw it, and I thought it was a very decent movie. It is certainly not a waste of time, and it was like a breath of fresh air compared to all the other crap showing on local broadcast TV. The plot was not original, but I like how they presented it. And I also thought the jet was cool. The acting was 'OK'. I have certainly seen worse in the movie theater, but it could have been better. The music score fit the movie well and the actors were OK. The plane was cool to look at. The plot, although not original, was interesting. It also has a good cliff hanger to it, and at one point in the movie I was afraid of the dreaded "To be Continued" (this was before I knew I was watching a movie). The over all feel to it was like a really good episode of "24".

Bottom Line: Not a waste of time, but not exactly super-fantastic either.