# Daylight (1996 film)

Daylight is a 1996 American disaster film directed by Rob Cohen and starring Sylvester Stallone, Amy Brenneman, Viggo Mortensen, Dan Hedaya, Stan Shaw, Jay O. Sanders, Karen Young and Danielle Harris. Its plot concerns a group of people attempting to find their way out of an underground tunnel in Manhattan, after explosions cause both ends of the tunnel to collapse.
Daylight was released by Universal Pictures on December 6, 1996, in the United States, and on December 26 in the United Kingdom. It received mixed reviews and grossed $159 million worldwide.

## Plot

In upstate New York, barrels of volatile toxic waste are loaded onto trucks to be illegally disposed of at a site in New Jersey. The trucks enter a tunnel beneath the Hudson River along with other commuters, including struggling playwright Maddy Thompson, a bus of juvenile offenders, a vacationing family, an elderly couple with a dog, and athlete Roy Nord. Meanwhile, a gang steals a briefcase and gems and flees by car into the tunnel, pursued by the New York City Police. The gang loses control of their vehicle and crashes into one of the waste trucks, causing an explosive blast that seals the tunnel off from the outside, fills it with toxic gas, and kills dozens of commuters.
Caught on the outside of the tunnel collapse, former New York City Emergency Medical Services Chief Kit Latura, now working as a taxi driver, rushes to help whomever he can. Encountering his former EMS colleagues, Kit suggests intentionally collapsing the roof to protect the trapped survivors from the fumes, but is dismissed by their commander, Wilson, who is killed when the unstable tunnel collapses further. Kit enters the sealed tunnel through the ventilation system, risking his life as the fans can only be slowed down for a short time.
Survivors band around Nord, who believes that he can exit through the mid-river passage, a service corridor running between the north and south tubes. Kit arrives and warns Nord that the passage could soon come down, but Nord dismisses the possibility. Kit escapes as the passage collapses, killing Nord and causing another explosion which kills a juvenile offender.
Water begins seeping in from the river above, and Kit uses an explosive to stop the leak. Police officer George Tyrell returns from investigating the Manhattan end and is crushed under a truck as the road shifts. The group frees him before he can drown, but he is left with a broken neck. The water level continues to rise, and the angry survivors confront Kit. He claims that he can slow it down but not stop it, as the clean-up effort on the Manhattan side of the tunnel is causing water to enter their side. There are sleeping quarters beside the tunnels (leftover from the tunnel's construction), and Kit asks George how to access them. Kit finds one by swimming under a security booth and leads the group to this area, but George has to be left behind. He gives Kit a bracelet intended for his girlfriend Grace.
Elderly survivor Eleanor is distressed that her late son's dog Cooper is missing. She refuses to go on, then passes away, presumably from hypothermia. The group moves to another room as the first one floods, convincing Eleanor's husband Roger to come with them. As they reach the top of an old wooden staircase, Kit notices Cooper swimming in the water below and dives down to rescue him, passing him up to a survivor, but a beam falls and destroys the lower half, sending Kit into the water. Maddy tries to help Kit up, but she falls as well, as more of the staircase is knocked down. Kit orders the rest of the group to leave. The majority of the group escape through a manhole into daylight while the corridor caves in behind them, leaving Kit and Maddy behind in the rising water.
Kit and Maddy swim around looking for an exit, with the main highway tunnel now almost completely submerged. Kit realizes that he will have to use his explosives to cause a "blow out" and rip the tunnel roof open. A mass of mud crushes Kit, and Maddy tries to pull him out. The blast forces Maddy towards the surface, but Kit gets stuck in the mud. Maddy finds a barely conscious Kit and keeps him afloat as a boat discovers them offshore. Lying on a stretcher, Kit sees Grace in the crowd and hands her George's bracelet. Maddy insists on riding with him in the ambulance. But Kit says “We better take the bridge”.

## Cast

* Sylvester Stallone as Chief Kit Latura, a disgraced former New York City Emergency Medical Services (EMS) chief who tries to save the survivors trapped inside the tunnel. Rob Cohen originally wanted Nicolas Cage to play Kit Latura, but Universal execs felt he was more of a "character actor", and Stallone was more commercially viable
* Amy Brenneman as Madelyne Thompson, a struggling playwright who was moving out of New York City when the tunnel explosion traps her inside
* Viggo Mortensen as Roy Nord, a rich sports celebrity known for doing commercials for sports company Territory Beyond who is trapped in the tunnel after an explosion
* Dan Hedaya as Frank Kraft, an alternate chief EMS medic who is an estranged friend of Kit's after Frank's brother was killed under Kit's watch a year before
* Jay O. Sanders as Steven Crighton, a family man taking his wife and daughter to New York to patch up his strained relationship with his family when the explosion traps all three in the tunnel
* Karen Young as Sarah Crighton, Steven's wife and Ashley's mother who is trapped in the tunnel along with them by the explosion
* Claire Bloom as Eleanor Trilling, Roger's wife who is trapped alongside her husband and family dog in the tunnel when the explosion seals them inside
* Vanessa Bell Calloway as Grace, tunnel operations dispatcher whose boyfriend police officer George Tyrell is trapped inside the tunnel
* Renoly Santiago as Mikey, a shy juvenile delinquent going to juvenile prison when the explosion traps him and other delinquents in the Holland Tunnel
* Colin Fox as Roger Trilling, an elderly man trapped alongside his wife Eleanor and their late son's dog Cooper in the tunnel
* Danielle Harris as Ashley Crighton, Steven and Sarah's 14-year-old daughter who is trapped alongside her distanced parents in the tunnel
* Trina McGee as Latonya, a female juvenile delinquent trapped along with other trouble youths at the tunnel
* Marcello Thedford as Kadeem, a young juvenile hoodlum arrested for armed robbery who is also trapped with the others
* Sage Stallone as Vincent, a juvenile hoodlum arrested for being a con-artist who becomes Ashley's love interest
* Jo Anderson as Bloom, an EMS search-and-rescue paramedic
* Mark Rolston as Chief Dennis Wilson, an antagonistic EMS chief who replaced Kit after his dismissal
* Rosemary Forsyth as Ms. London, an arrogant head of New York's engineer company
* Luoyong Wang as Gem Dealer
* Lee Oakes as a grunge, robs the gem dealer
* Barry Newman as Norman Bassett, the tunnel operations supervisor
* Stan Shaw as George Tyrell, a transit cop trapped in the tunnel by the explosion

## Production

Principal photography for the film was shot in Rome, Italy at Cinecittà Studios for the tunnel scenes. Filming also took place in New York City.

## Release
### Home media

The film was released by MCA/Universal Home Video on VHS & LaserDisc with a digital DTS soundtrack on May 20, 1997. The film was also released on DVD on May 26, 1998, with extra features including the movies trailer as well as language selections and a director's commentary.

## Reception
### Box office

Daylight opened in 2,175 theaters in North America, during which it grossed $10 million. After 55 weeks, the film earned $33 million in the US and $126.2 million internationally for a total of $159.2 million.

### Critical response

The film has a 29% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 45 reviews and an average rating of 5 out of 10. The critical consensus reads: "The opening's got a great fiery explosion and Stallone puts in another earnest, sympathetic performance, but all else in Daylight feels designed to annoy the audience into submission."
There were, however, some moderate and positive reviews. Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of 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. At one point, when a trapped civilian asks him if they have a chance, I expected him to say, 'Calm down, lady. I've done this in a dozen other movies.'" 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." Randy Edelman's musical score was also praised.
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.
About the film, Stallone simply said: "The premise was really good, but it didn't deliver".

### Accolades

The film won a Golden Reel Award for Best Sound Editing and was nominated for an Academy Award in the same category (Richard L. Anderson and David A. Whittaker). It was also nominated for two Golden Raspberry Awards, Worst Actor (Sylvester Stallone) and Worst Original Song (Whenever There Is Love). For the 1996 Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, Stallone was nominated for Worst Actor too. The movie was famous for introducing the Panerai special line of watches (Panerai Daylight) by the request of Stallone himself.

## Novelization

A novelization based on the film by Max Allan Collins titled Daylight, was released in 1996.