Mayday film review: Cold War frenemies hit Apple TV hard

The Mayday film pairs Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh in an Apple TV Cold War buddy comedy critics say works. Set in 1987, a shot-down U.S. Navy pilot and an America-loving ex-KGB agent race across the Soviet Union in a Spies Like Us-style action road movie with a softer geopolitical edge.

If you came looking for the short verdict on the Mayday film, here it is: writing-directing duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley deliver an ’80s-style buddy caper that leans harder on chemistry and set pieces than on pure gag volume. IGN called it a likeable Cold War action-comedy and scored it a 7. CBC’s Jackson Weaver went further, arguing the movie is “propaganda — and it rocks.”

That combination of nostalgia and odd-couple stakes is why the title belongs in our Nostalgia: Then & Now lane. It is not just another Reynolds vehicle. It is a Reagan-era fantasy rebuilt for streaming, with Top Gun posters, Born in the U.S.A. cassettes, and a road trip that keeps asking what American exceptionalism looks like from the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Key Takeaways

• The Mayday film arrives on Apple TV as a 1987-set buddy comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Kenneth Branagh.
• Goldstein and Daley favor a Spies Like Us tone over the harder anti-Russian pulp of Red Dawn or Rambo III.
• IGN praised the action and Branagh’s oddball dynamic; CBC said both leads are in top form.
• The story dismantles Troy’s prejudices through encounters with ordinary Soviets and Nick’s activist daughter.
• Critics note a rosy Hollywood finish, but credit the film for teasing that Cold War “good guys” were never that simple.

What is the Mayday film actually about?

Reynolds plays Lieutenant Troy Kelly, a cocky U.S. Navy pilot who sees himself as the unit’s best flyer and borrows Maverick swagger from Top Gun’s pop-culture afterglow. He goes rogue to save a wingman’s faulty plane, then lands a covert job co-piloting a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird meant to photograph missile silos 1,200 miles inside the Soviet border.

The mission collapses fast. After a brief, thrilling dogfight, the “beast” of a spy plane becomes fiery wreckage in a snow-laden forest. An injured Troy blacks out just as a mysterious man approaches. He wakes in the cabin of Nikolai Ustinov—“Nick,” if he can help it—played by Branagh as an ex-KGB Americophile with a Top Gun poster on the wall and a soft spot for U.S. democracy, culture, and food.

From there, Mayday turns into a hunted road movie. Both men become enemies of the state while racing across Russia, pursued by KGB official Alexander Volkov (Marcin Dorociński). Nick’s estranged activist daughter Anna (Maria Bakalova) enters the mix, and the set pieces escalate: a face-off with a train full of soldiers, a Moscow car chase involving a nuclear transporter, and fight scenes that IGN and CBC both flag as unusually clean and wide-shot confident.

Why does this Cold War buddy comedy matter now?

On paper, the premise sounds like another round of “what if Russians were people, too?” CBC’s Weaver calls that framing almost embarrassing—and then admits the film completely works anyway. The movie only lands, he argues, if audiences still feel the tug of us-versus-them storytelling, then watch Troy’s certainty crack.

IGN sees a parallel point in the plot’s quieter beats. Breaking bread with locals, talking with Anna, and learning about a government cover-up that hit Nick personally chip away at Troy’s dim view of Russia. “You can’t reform something that is fundamentally broken,” he says early on, branding the place a prison. The journey forces that line to buckle.

Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A. album becomes another thematic running gag. It is Nick’s favorite cassette and something Troy would rather not endure for a 12-hour ride. IGN reads that standoff as a neat shorthand for American identity’s contradictions: borders may divide states, but everyday people under propaganda and class pressure look startlingly alike.

CBC adds that Mayday is at least dimly aware of its own soft-power job. Corrupt, ineffectual politicians appear on both sides. Soviet rights violations remain more egregious in the film’s framing, yet there is no wholesale vindication of America or cartoon-only villainy for every Russian. For a mainstream popcorn movie, that is a low bar—and one reviewers say it clears.

How do Reynolds and Branagh play as frenemies?

Reynolds stays in familiar sarcastic territory as Troy, more straight-man foil than full Deadpool riff. CBC prefers that balance, comparing the vibe to Mississippi Grind’s tragicomic road energy mixed with Safe House’s espionage tension. When Reynolds is the wisecracking passenger rather than the whole carnival, the jokes stay fresher.

Branagh is the elevation play. After Russian antagonist turns in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Tenet, IGN finds it refreshing to watch him put the accent work toward a heroic, kooky protector. Nick looks kind, then proves formidable in bar-room combat staged with wide shots and minimal edits. CBC describes the camera as gliding through mayhem “as unbothered and assured as Nikolai himself,” a “slow is smooth” approach that makes Branagh’s death-machine kindness feel stylish rather than frantic.

Volkov is less iconic than a Hans Landa-level monster, IGN notes, but still intimidating enough to keep the chase alive. The odd-couple engine remains the draw: American ego meeting Russian Americophilia under gunfire, haymakers, and mutual distrust that slowly thaws into partnership.

Is the Mayday film more nostalgia trip than political statement?

Mostly yes—and the critics do not pretend otherwise. Goldstein and Daley evoke Lethal Weapon–era buddy energy more than diplomatic history. IGN says the movie does not dig deep into political bureaucracy beyond what the plot needs, and that the ending may be a little too rosy. “That’s Hollywood for you,” the review shrugs: idealism over despair so audiences leave with hope.

CBC frames the same surface sheen as an Olympus Has Fallen–style Reagan-years shoot-em-up with enough self-awareness to tease whether Cold War morality was ever cleanly split. Weaver’s closing punchline sticks: the surprise is not discovering humanity in the enemy. It is realizing we still think we have outgrown that blindness.

For viewers chasing pure ’80s comfort food, the Mayday film delivers planes, trains, automobiles, and a buddy-comedy handshake across the Iron Curtain. For anyone tracking how nostalgia packages geopolitics in 2026, the more interesting part is how openly the movie sells empathy as entertainment—and how often that still feels like news.