Daylight (1996) Review: Stallone's Tunnel Disaster Movie Deserves Another Look

The Slept-On Cinema Case

Both hosts landed in the same place: a movie they half-remembered from childhood that turned out to be better as adults. Grobe put it plainly on the episode: "It's almost better now, watching it as an adult." The Academy nominated it for Sound Editing, and the hosts think it should have won. The first twenty minutes are practical-effects fireworks, and the rest is a survival picture with a cast of characters you understand in about thirty seconds each.

The context matters. The film opened December 6, 1996 at number two behind the second weekend of 101 Dalmatians, did $33 million domestic, and then $159 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. Grobe calls that "the Stallone effect." Disaster travels.

The first pick

Stan took the opening explosion first overall and made a declaration: it has overtaken the pyroclastic cloud from Dante's Peak as his favorite explosion of the podcast. It's all practical, it goes on and on, and as Stan says, "This looks real because it is real." Grobe's first pick was the getting-the-gang-together opening, where every future tunnel survivor gets a thirty-second vignette and you know exactly who they are before the limo driver turns around.

Also drafted: the wind-turbine gauntlet (Grobe's pick, played with no score, just Stallone's groans and the fans), Stan Shaw as tunnel cop George Tyrell (Stan's pick, "the most complete character in the entire movie"), the fire-meets-water double catastrophe, and Randy Edelman's score, which Grobe traced back to the show's own Anaconda episode. Sleeper picks: yelling "big tip" to a cabbie, and the creepy sculpted faces above tunnel entrances.

BOLOs

• The tunnel-themed opening credits, and toxic waste so toxic it glows.
• The dad from Clueless, Angela from Boy Meets World, and Iman, the barking bride from Coming to America.
• Rats and roaches, the second answering machine of the podcast, and people freezing without visible breath.
• A fake mustache on a man famous for a real one, a car fax machine, and the very large watch that reportedly started a trend.
• A one-armed pull-up, the sinister female haircut, a table full of plastic bottles, and what Grobe calls maybe the best title-line usage the show has had.

Worth watching?

Yes, and put the first twenty minutes on a loop. The hosts' one change is the same one they'd make to most disaster movies: cap it at ninety minutes and trim a couple of survivors so the third act doesn't sag after the fireball. Grobe's pet peeve is the accent work on George's girlfriend, and both agree George's ending is now the most horrific death on the podcast, dethroning the opener of Sudden Death. Favorite person rescued: Stan took the cheating, complaining dad because he's exactly the guy you'd meet in that tunnel; Grobe took Viggo Mortensen's Roy Nord, the most confident man in the history of film. Drinks to pair: the neon-green Toxic Waste cocktail (vodka, sour apple schnapps, blue curaçao, orange juice, citrus bitters, club soda) or a Rusty Nail (two parts Scotch, one part Drambuie, over ice). Get toxic wasted.

Production observation

The Holland Tunnel opened in 1927, runs 8,500 feet, sits about 93 feet down, and was the first mechanically ventilated tunnel ever built; its fans replace all the air every 90 seconds, which is why the movie's turbine room exists at all. Stan also found the 1949 Holland Tunnel fire, a truck carrying drums of hazardous material that weren't allowed in the tunnel, which the movie clearly borrows from. As Grobe says, "I'm surprised it didn't get a 'based on a true story' before." Spin-off pitches: Stan wants the South Bronx backstory that got Kit Latura fired; Grobe wants Siblings of Shadows, a Van Damme-style double-Stallone movie that merges this Kit with Cliffhanger's Gabe, then reveals a third, frail evil-genius Stallone in the last ten minutes.

Keep the movie night going

• Dante's Peak for the explosion this one dethroned.
• Volcano for the other 1997 disaster the hosts defended.
• Underrated 90s Action Movies for more of the era's practical-effects spectacle.
• The Qualification List for every movie the show has defended.