Daylight (film)

Daylight
Daylight film poster
Directed by	Rob Cohen
Produced by	John Davis David T. Friendly Joseph Singer
Written by	Leslie Bohem
Starring	Sylvester Stallone Amy Brenneman Viggo Mortensen Dan Hedaya Jay O. Sanders Karen Young Claire Bloom Danielle Harris with Barry Newman and Stan Shaw
Music by	Randy Edelman
Studio	Davis Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	United States December 6, 1996
Running time	115 minutes (US/JP) 110 minutes (AUS/GER)
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$90,000,000[1]
Box office	$159,212,469 (worldwide)

Daylight is a 1996 disaster film, starring Sylvester Stallone, Amy Brenneman, Viggo Mortensen, Dan Hedaya, and Danielle Harris. It was directed by Rob Cohen and released in theaters on December 6, 1996.

Plot

The film opens with a waste management firm in upstate NY trying to illegally dispose of toxic waste. Chemicals are loaded on three trucks bound for New Jersey. Meanwhile, a crew of diamond thieves steal a shipment of stones and a black Cadillac Seville. The thieves are pursued by NYPD and elude capture by heading into a tunnel between Manhattan and New Jersey. As the loaded trucks enter the tunnel, the thieves do also, crashing through a barricade. They push their way past the traffic entering the tunnel, causing chaos as they make their way through the north tube. As they weave and shove their way past traffic, the diamonds spill all over the floor of the car. As one of the thieves reaches down to get the diamonds, she pushes the gas pedal to the floor. The Cadillac accelerates wildly, and the driver loses control. The car hits the tunnel wall, and goes airborne, smashing into a booth housing police officers, and smashes into one of the trucks. The truck explodes, setting off a chain reaction explosion that destroys the other two trucks. The destruction of the trucks and their cargo creates a devastating explosion that causes the roof of the tunnel to cave in. Cars on the New Jersey end are flattened. Another explosion takes place, and the fire, fueled by the remaining oxygen in the tube, explodes into a fireball, rushing through the tunnel at hellish speed. The fireball devours everything in its path.

On the Manhattan end of the tunnel, former New York City Emergency Medical Services Chief, Kit Latura (Sylvester Stallone), working as a taxi driver, is preparing to drive into the tunnel when the entrance suddenly explodes. The entrance caves in, blocking the tunnel. He then races into action, trying to help whoever he can. He runs into an old EMS colleague who tells him that the tunnel is severely damaged.

Kit then checks with tunnel administrators, and finds that the hidden passages have all been sealed off. The only escape route, the Mid River Passage, a service tunnel running between the north and south tubes, has been so severely damaged in the blast that it is virtually impossible to use as an escape route. With the tube weakened, the structure could come down if any wrong moves are made. Roy Nord (Viggo Mortensen), one of the survivors in the tunnel, believes he can find a way out through the mid-river passage. Kit makes his way into the tunnel through the tunnel's ventilation fans. He learns that Nord has entered the mid-river passage and goes after him; he finds Nord and warns him that the passage could come down at any moment, but Nord dismisses the possibility. Kit runs out as the mid-river collapses, killing Nord. Kit barely escapes and a small explosion kills one of the survivors.

Water begins seeping in from the river and Kit uses an explosive to stop the leak. Soon afterward George Tyrell (Stan Shaw), a police officer in the tunnel, returns from investigating the Manhattan end and is crushed by a truck as it comes over the broken road. Kit and the survivors manage to free him from beneath the truck but he is left with a broken neck. Water begins seeping in again and angry survivors confront Kit about the situation. He claims he can slow it down but nothing can stop the pressure from the clean-up effort on the Manhattan side of the tunnel, which is causing the water to come enter their side. He asks George if there are any booths which may have a way to dry area; George mentions booth 3 and Kit swims under it and finds a dry storage area. He returns to tell the survivors of his discovery and they head to the booth. George can not go, however, because of his broken neck. He gives Kit a bracelet to give to Grace (Vanessa Bell Calloway), his girlfriend, and tells him to "take them to daylight", a reference to the survivors. After the survivors reach the dry ground, Eleanor (Claire Bloom), one of the elder survivors, realizes her dog, Cooper, is missing and soon dies, presumably from shock and/or hypothermia. Water starts to come in and Kit discovers another room behind a wall. He manages to pull part of the wall out and this leads to another storage room, in which he uses a glow stick to light up the area. Water comes in here as well and Kit and the survivors run up a wooden staircase. A beam falls and destroys half of the staircase. Kit notices Cooper swimming to the bottom of the remaining staircase and goes to rescue him. He successfully saves the dog, but due to a falling ceiling beam, he accidentally falls into the water along with the rest of the staircase. This isolates him from the survivors. One of them, Maddy (Amy Brenneman), tries to help him up but she falls as well. Another survivor notices a way out through the stairways end (to an unfinished sewer) and Kit makes the other survivors leave just before most of the area above the stairway collapses.

Kit and Maddy then swim around looking for a possible way out. Kit realizes he will have to do a blow out, in which an explosion would blow the tunnel roof open in a geyser-like explosion, forcing water out through the river bed. At this point there appears to be a romantic connection between the two. Kit lights fuses and swims to a safety point to the tunnel road. The fuses go off and the tunnel appears to collapse; Kit emerges from the mud and he and Maddy are seen blowing in opposite directions as the water blows through the river bed. The water can be seen bubbling on the surface of the river and Maddy appears and finds Kit. He appears to be heavily exhausted but otherwise okay. They are discovered by boats on the river and taken to EMS workers. Kit hands Grace the bracelet. Maddy then insists on riding with him and she jokingly says she probably has no other choice. Kit replies, "On one condition, we gotta take the bridge."

Cast

• Sylvester Stallone as Kit Latura
• Amy Brenneman as Madelyne "Maddy" Thompson
• Viggo Mortensen as Roy Nord
• Stan Shaw as George Tyrell
• Sage Stallone as Vincent
• Trina McGee as LaTonya
• Danielle Harris as Ashley Crighton
• Jay O. Sanders as Steven Crighton
• Karen Young as Sarah Crighton
• Colin Fox as Roger Trilling
• Claire Bloom as Eleanor Trilling
• Dan Hedaya as Frank Craft
• Vanessa Bell Calloway as Grace Calloway
• Renoly Santiago as Mikey
• Marcello Thedford as Kadeem
• Barry Newman as Norman Bassett
• Mark Rolston as Chief Dennis Wilson
• Jo Anderson as Bloom

Reception

The film generally received negative reviews. Based on 25 reviews collected by the film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 22% of critics gave Daylight a positive review.^[2] Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out four, commenting, "Daylight is the cinematic equivalent of a golden oldies station, where you never encounter anything you haven't grown to love over the years."^[3] Empire gave the film four stars out of five, stating, "Daylight is great because it never tries to be any more than it is — a disaster movie with all the special-effects hoopla the 90s can bring."^[4]

While Daylight only made $33 million in the US, overseas it took in over $126 million, resulting in gross earnings of $159,212,469 worldwide.^[5][6]

The film won a Golden Reel Award for best Sound Editing and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category. It was also nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards, Worst Actor (Sylvester Stallone) and Worst Original Song ("Whenever There Is Love").

References

1. ^ Brennan, Judy (February 5, 1997). "Rocky's Fans Are Overseas". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1997-02-05/entertainment/ca-25465_1_rocky-vi. Retrieved 2010-12-25. 
2. ^ "Daylight (1996)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/daylight/. Retrieved September 19, 2009. 
3. ^ Ebert, Roger (December 6, 1996). "Daylight". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19961206/REVIEWS/612060301/1023. Retrieved May 24, 2011. 
4. ^ Nathan, Ian. "Daylight". Empire. http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=131983. Retrieved May 24, 2011. 
5. ^ "Daylight (1996)". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=daylight.htm. Retrieved September 19, 2009. 
6. ^ Brennan, Judy (February 5, 1997). "Rocky's Fans Are Overseas". The Los Angeles Times. http://articles.latimes.com/1997-02-05/entertainment/ca-25465_1_rocky-vi. Retrieved 2010-12-25. 

External links

• Daylight at the Internet Movie Database