Date: Fri 06-Jun-1997

Publication: Bee

Author: DONNAM

Quick Words:

Playing-Stallone-Daylight

Full Text:

(rev "Daylight" for Now Playing, 6/6/97)

Now Playing-

Stallone Strong In Weak `Daylight'

By Trey Paul Alexander III

Hollywood cinema's summer season has been ushered in by rampaging dinosaurs

and ringing cash registers as The Lost World: Jurassic Park raked in big bucks

on its way to box office records over the Memorial Day weekend. Yet the

onslaught is only beginning as scores more blockbuster hopefuls - Con Air ,

Speed 2 and Batman and Robin , to name a few - begin unspooling in successive

weeks. Before these "must-see" flicks dominate the screen scene, let's pause

to examine one of the top videocassette rentals in the country, an

underachiever from the winter season, Daylight .

Starring Sylvester Stallone and directed by Rob Cohen ( Dragonheart and

Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story ), this disaster movie stages a catastrophic

collision in Manhattan's Holland Tunnel that seals off both the New York and

New Jersey exits and traps a group of travelers within the bowels of the

collapsing underwater passage. Cohen wastes little time with exposition as he

rapidly unveils his eclectic roll, which includes a daunted writer (Amy

Brenneman), a cocky celebrity/athlete (Viggo Mortensen), a wealthy older

couple (Colin Fox and Claire Bloom) and their dog, a cheerful tunnel cop (Stan

Shaw), a dysfunctional family (Jay O. Sanders, Karen Young and teen Danielle

Harris), and a bus load of young prisoners.

The mayhem ensues when a frantic car chase leads to an automobile pileup and a

crash into a load of trucks carrying toxic waste. A fireball is unleashed,

vehicles are charred, walls come tumbling down, and men, women and children

(and dogs) are left scurrying for dear life. It's a fantastic, visually

stunning sequence that evokes gasps and viewer recoil even on the small

screen. Cohen takes charge during these well-conceived images of destruction;

they are realistically depicted yet not gratuitously graphic or gory.

As the dust clears, it is clear the city has an impending "situation" on its

hands, so who are they gonna call? Well, it's Sly to the rescue, of course, as

Kit Latura (it took me half the movie to figure out they were calling him

"Kit" instead of "Kid"!), a disgraced former Emergency Medical Services chief

who just happens to be at the right place at the right time. Though his

superiors want nothing to do with him, Latura volunteers his services and

descends into the wreckage to save the survivors before the devastation

overwhelms them.

Daylight stumbles early as it tries to stir some characterization into the mix

with the pitfalls of oxygen shortage, leaking walls, hypothermia and unstable

group dynamics. It was wise of writer Leslie Bohem to assume we need to know

about these characters in order for us to care whether they live or die, but

the tired old cliches used here don't pass muster. Or more to the point, the

lame dialogue flows faster than the thousands of gallons of freezing water

encroaching upon the protagonists.

But as the survivors fight for options against a seemingly dismal situation,

Daylight emerges as more than passable entertainment. Stallone's can-do EMS

hero is a steely leader, but vulnerable enough to keep the outcome in

question, and the supporting cast is able to keep us rooting for a triumphant

flight to safety. The movie never achieves the heights of nail-biting suspense

to which it aspires, but it keeps one diverted and the climax hits enough of

the right notes to make it worth its rental.

Daylight is rated PG-13 for profanity. Though fatalities are incurred, the

violence is relatively tame and kept inexplicit. As an extra bonus, the video

contains a 10-minute, behind-the-scenes feature at the end. Unfortunately,

instead of a revealing, backstage look, it reminds us of the film's shaky,

early sensibility, instead of its solid, pleasing second half.