Mayday

Vu dans le contexte des films d’action génériques et niais mettant en vedette Gerard Butler, Mayday est agréablement rafraîchissant par son cadre asiatique exotique et ses « méchants » auxquels nous avaient plutôt habitués les films de Rambo. Le capitaine s’estime responsable de ses passagers et son passé militaire lui permet de savoir tenir une mitraillette entre les mains. Le film joue sur le thème du « buddy movie », le héro passe des appels longue distance à sa fille, etc. En revanche, les effets spéciaux lors de l’atterrissage d’urgence de l’avion sont médiocres. (25/02/2023)

An amazing B-movie action ride with and an excellent Butler! The skilful French director Jean-François Richet hasn't made a bad film for me yet, I even have his Mesrine: Killer Instinct among my favourites, and Plane is such a guilty pleasure that it meets most of my requirements. It benefits from an appealing premise that is perfect for a proper action film. It's part disaster plane survival and part fight for your life in hostile territory with the Philippine Guerillas, and I really enjoy that. Gerard Butler plays exactly the leading charismatic likeable guy he is wont to do here (he even drops a decent wisecrack here and there), and Mike Colter, who plays the prisoner-killer aboard the plane, is excellent. Butler, of course, has no choice but to work with the prisoner to get rid of the greater evil. A very unconventional team-up that works great all round. Colter is also a member of the French Legion, so he is in his element, and his experience gives him the edge over everyone. The action is excellent, there's only one fight, but it's very intense, but the shootouts are properly bloody and nicely shot, (there was even some awesome jungle “Splinter Cell” stealth action!) and sniper action has never been more impressive than here. The airplane scenes were also nice, with no shortage of dense atmosphere and more than solid build-up in places. There's absolutely no sparing of tension throughout the film and the bad guys are excellent, especially the two central scumbags, you can respect the hell out of them. I must also praise the scenes where they search for the missing plane. Tony Goldwyn gives a great performance, there's some solid dialogue and I enjoyed a lot of the behind the scenes stuff. For me, this is definitely a film I'll happily watch again due to its briskness, fun, action and the insane adrenaline rush it pours. My quibbles are mostly directed to the occasionally dodgy stunts and it's a shame there wasn't some deeper investigative line about the prisoner at the end. But regardless, great fun and satisfaction. 85%. (06/02/2023)

Not a silly drama at all compared to the flush rubbish Butler usually works on. You can see that it was made by a skilled Frenchman, so the clichés that are typical of action movies made by Hollywood don't offend you and it also has that nice old-world vibe of movies from a few decades back. There's not really that much action, and when there is, it's nice and raw (sniper!) and with good sound. It is really good. (11/02/2023)

When Captain Butler welcomes passengers on board at the beginning and talks about his era, saying he is "pretty much indestructible," we already know he’s talking about himself. He takes passengers to heaven and back twice, while preparing hell for militant separatists. He has, besides the Plane, a Plan (even if it's sometimes quite idiotic). Sure, it's okay, but imagine how it would have looked thirty years ago with Bruce Willis. One quip after another, a set of lines interacting with Mike Colter's character, and maybe a postcard from some exotic destination in the mailbox at the end, hinting that the money in the bag worked out. While there aren’t moments like the plane's nose stopping just five centimeters from a fuel tanker, Jean-François Richet's film takes itself so seriously that even Leslie Nielsen would have chuckled. (08/02/2023)

An old-fashioned action flick that relies on an interesting, albeit B-movie script and a skilled director. Jean-François Richet knows his craft, and Gerard Butler and Mike Colter have no trouble watching his back. The jungle running and contact bloody fights are crowned by a final shootout with a wonderful sniping with Filipinos flying a good three metres over the top of a car. Awesome! (22/12/2023)