How Mayday Uses One Quiet Joke to Question American Individualism

# Premise and setup Mayday is a 1987 Cold War action-comedy on Apple TV+ written and directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley. Ryan Reynolds plays Lieutenant Troy, a U.S. Navy pilot who crash-lands behind Soviet lines during the Gorbachev era. Kenneth Branagh plays Nikolai Ustinov — Nick in exile-ready English — a Russian carpenter who idolizes American capitalism.

# A matchup of values The film opens with Troy declaring his beliefs about freedom: "Collectivism is always at the cost of individual freedom." That statement frames Troy as a straightforward Cold War hero who loves America and capitalism. Nick, by contrast, worships American pop culture (Top Gun is his favorite movie) and dreams of McDonald's and legal passage to the United States.

The pair strike a bargain: Nick will help Troy escape Russia, and Troy will use his connections to get Nick to the U.S. The relationship is set up as a buddy comedy, full of the sexual innuendos, Top Gun callbacks, and slapstick beats that the directors previously used in Game Night and their Dungeons & Dragons film.

# The one perfect joke The film's most consequential moment comes when Troy and Nick, hungry and beaten, knock on the door of an impoverished Russian family asking for shelter. The family welcomes them, feeds them, and shares the little food they have.

Nick, baffled and pleased, asks Troy why the family would help. Troy reflexively answers, "Of course [in America] they would" — delivered with a nervous chuckle. The audience understands the double meaning: Troy says the line to reassure Nick, but the film lets viewers hear that Troy isn't sure it would be that simple in the U.S. In 1987 terms — Reagan's era, "greed is good" rhetoric, and property rights — the joke lands as an indictment of an American, every-person-for-themselves mentality.

# What the joke does That scene is the closest the movie gets to endorsing collectivist values. It reverses Troy's opening claim by showing that mutual aid — strangers sharing scarce resources — can be life-saving. The film never makes an extended argument for collectivism, but the scene uses contrast and timing to complicate the audience's easy alignment with Troy's initial stance.

# Limits of the film's critique Mayday largely keeps to familiar territory: it indulges the "evil Russian villain" trope and retains a broadly pro‑American arc. Troy admits the U.S. isn't perfect but doesn't expand on specifics. The movie offers a cheeky swipe at American individualism rather than sustained criticism. The humor and chemistry between Reynolds and Branagh carry the movie more than its political exploration.

# Bottom line Mayday is an entertaining action-comedy that briefly uses character interaction and a single well-timed joke to question the strict divide between collectivism and individual freedom. The film doesn't fully pursue that line of thought, but the moment gives it more nuance than many comparable American Cold War pieces.