Excellent but underrated film

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A commercial airplane flies peacefully through the skies on its way to Japan. Suddenly it is hit by an advanced missile, shot by the Navy as part of a military exercice. While the remaining passengers and crew fight for their survival, those responsible for the strike begin to realize that they made a costly mistake which is NOT going to look good on their resume...An airplane disaster movie notable mainly a) for its convincing (and deeply terrifying) depiction of an airplane disaster and b) for its deeply pessimistic view of humanity. The plot overflows with people worrying not about the disaster, but about the way the disaster, and its legal aftermath, is going to influence their career, status or financial well-being. As a result the poor survivors trying to keep the plane from crashing have to fear more from their fellow men than from gravity. One can dismiss all of this as the paranoid fantasies of a hack writer, but I for one would not be surprised to discover that there have been real-life incidents involving a pretty similar mix of incompetence, callousness and malevolence... Like I've said, there are some well-done and memorable scenes of chaos and destruction, following the moment where the missile shot two giant holes in the airplane. Not a movie for those who are afraid of flying or afraid of tiny, enclosed spaces...Finally, one should not watch "Mayday" for the quality of its screenplay, its dialogue or its acting. I've noticed a few actors and actresses whose nearest and dearest should have staged an intervention before things went south. ("Yes, dear, we know you've enrolled in acting academy, but the world needs good wedding cake bakers and great-uncle Marcus is looking for an assistant. He could teach you everything there is to know about marzipan roses. There's good money in wedding cakes and... Now don't start crying, dear, you know that's not going to help anybody.")

This is one of the most ludicrous movies i've ever seen. The plot has been probably written by a 12 year old, and there are so many evident absurdities that i wonder who it was that deemed reasonable to throw away money to produce this excrement. The acting is so poor that even my butcher could have done better. The fact that an amateur pilot can bring back from the middle of the ocean and then safely land in the middle of a storm at dusk a damaged jetliner, short on fuel and with all the instrument panels off..., well, draw your own conclusions Oh, i forgot - our hero, as said, is a weekend pilot, but somehow he gets tricked into switching off the fuel pumps: even an idiot with absolutely no knowledge of airplanes would guess that maybe closing the fuel pumps leads to an engine cut off, which isn't quite an advisable thing to do in the middle of a flight, let alone doing it on a damaged aircraft. Adding more insult, he manages to restart the engines and recover the plane from a free-fall leveling it off at 1000 feet just seconds before crashing into the ocean. This trash should rank in the bottom 250 of all time.

Considering this is a made for TV movie,the special effects were above the normal TV standard. Some good movie actors,Dean Cain and Adrian Quinn star in this film. I was able to purchase a DVD copy of this film,Mayday,through the German DVD shops which can be found on the web-sites. Grant you,this a made for TV film, it was not bad. The special effects,when the missal hit the plane,was well done. If you should wish to purchase a copy of this DVD from Germany,make sure your DVD player plays the European standard,pal system,if it does not,your player will not be able to play it. Does your player play other region DVD's,check your manual. I the player was purchased in the USA or Canada,no doubt it is region one. Here in Canada,multi region DVD players are for sale,or,do this,on the internet,type in DVD hackers list,this list lists all the players that are capable of playing this region DVD. It also gives instructions on how to change the region codes on your player,many DVD player,this can be done. Good luck.

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.