Daylight(1996)

Submitted by Tornado Dragon

SHORT VERSION:
Though the lives of four survivors end up getting lost during the film’s events, Kit ultimately manages to find an entryway to an abandoned sewer system that he and the survivors can use to get to the surface. However, just after he does so, he gets separated from them in an incident caused by a pressure shift created by a clean-up crew trying to drill an opening into the collapsed Manhattan end of the tunnel, and one survivor, Maddy, ends up getting stuck with him while trying to save him. After painfully accepting that they have no means of saving Kit or Maddy, the other survivors enter the sewer system without them, and they end up underneath a sewer grate in a parking garage, where they are found and rescued.

Kit and Maddy end up swimming back to the tunnel – now almost completely flooded due to the Hudson River leaking into it through the roof on the New Jersey end – so Kit can create a “blowout”, which involves him using some explosives he has to blow open a hole in the leaking roof right into the river, which will cause the pressure build-up in the tunnel to send them right up to the river’s surface. Though Kit nearly loses his life in the attempt, the blowout is successful, and he and Maddy are saved by a U.S. Coast Guard boat.

Upon returning to shore, Kit is taken on a gurney to a nearby ambulance, and Maddy follows him and tells him that, since they are both going to the hospital, she wants to ride with him. He decides to let her, but on the condition that they take the bridge.

LONG VERSION:
When a section of the roof gives in on the New Jersey end of the tunnel and freezing cold water from the Hudson River starts leaking in heavily, Kit (Sylvester Stallone) informs the survivors – George (Stan Shaw), Maddy (Amy Brenneman), Steven (Jay O. Sanders), Sarah (Karen Young), Ashley (Danielle Harris), Mikey (Renoly Santiago), Latonya (Trina McGee), Vincent (Sage Stallone), Roger (Colin Fox), Eleanor (Claire Bloom) and the latter two’s dog, Cooper – that he is going to use an explosive on that section in order to collapse it and plug the leak while also sealing off the toxic fire on that end. He then asks for someone to go down to the Manhattan end of the tunnel to see if any potential rescuers are making any progress, and George volunteers for the job because, being a transit cop, he knows the tunnel better than anyone else here. Before he goes, Kit gives him a message from his girlfriend, Grace (Vanessa Bell Calloway) (who works as the tunnel operations dispatcher), telling him that she wants her bracelet back, which George has. With help from Maddy, Kit gets the explosive in place and detonates it, and a huge wall of mud from the riverbed comes straight down and corks the leak all the way to the ceiling.

Meanwhile, the city engineers – led by Ms. London (Rosemary Forsyth) – come to think that the survivors in the tunnel are now dead because they have not been heard from in hours (though that is because the only piece of communication equipment they can use, George’s walkie-talkie, has gone dead), so Ms. London decides that they will send in a clean-up crew and heavy equipment over to the Manhattan side of the tunnel to break it open and start clearing away the debris in it in order to avoid traffic problems that will surely arise with the tunnel completely shut down. However, paramedic Bloom (Jo Anderson) and tunnel operations supervisor Norman (Barry Newman) warn her that the tunnel is being held up by counterpoint pressure, so if the clean-up crew uses their equipment to break open the tunnel, it could create a pressure shift that will cause the whole tunnel to implode. Ms. London dismisses it as just speculation and orders for the clean-up crew to get to work.

As the crew starts to drill, George hears it while he is making his way back towards Kit and the other survivors from the Manhattan end, and he yells out to Kit that he thinks that they are being dug out from that end. Unfortunately, the road suddenly shifts around George, creating a pit that he falls down into, and then a truck that was behind him comes down and partially pins him and breaks his neck. What’s worse, the water in the tunnel that has already leaked in starts to fill the pit and threatens to drown him. Kit and the survivors come to his rescue and, through using a few long and thick pieces of wood in the back of the truck and their combined might, they lift the truck off of George and pull him out from under it. They then fashion a first aid sled for him using a wooden plank and then get him out of the pit and set him down on top of one of the destroyed cars so he won’t catch hypothermia from the water.

A short time later, Kit and everyone else notice that the water level is rising in the tunnel, and when the survivors question Kit about it, he informs them that what he earlier did with the explosive only succeeded in slowing the leak, not stopping it. After taking a few moments to think about how they can all get out of this tunnel and onto dry ground, Kit approaches George and asks him if there is a way into the bunk rooms off the tunnels that the “sandhogs” used as lodgings for long work shifts back when the tunnel was first built. After some thought, George replies that the third security booth at the New Jersey end contains a way in. Kit makes his way over to the booth, dives under the water to get through the opening, and finds and opens the hatch to the bunk rooms. He returns to the group and tells them of his discovery, and after sending everyone else towards the underwater passage to check it out before returning for George, he talks to George alone to discuss how they will be able to move him into that room. However, George tells him that he knows that that simply won’t be possible, given his broken neck, and he tells Kit that he is just going to have to leave him here to die. He also tells Kit to take Grace’s bracelet out of his coat pocket and return it to her himself. Despite his reluctance, Kit decides to do as George says, and before he goes, George also instructs him to tell the others that he has died from his injuries. Kit then leaves, and when he catches up to the survivors, he gives them the (false) bad news about George.

After everyone makes it to the bunk room (except for Cooper, who gets lost in the passageway and is presumed dead, and Eleanor ends up dying presumably from hypothermia not long after arriving in the room), Kit tells them that they are just going to have to wait here until they get saved, thinking that there is nowhere else to go from here. However, shortly afterwards, a big pack of rats swim inside to escape the rising waters, and Kit takes notice of them going in behind the large crucifix hanging on the back wall and realizes that they know a way out. After Kit has Steven help him take down the crucifix, he looks through a hole in the wall and yells to the others that there is another room behind it, and just as the clean-up crew’s equipment shifts the tunnel further and causes more water to start gushing into the room, Kit and company use various objects to break off a section of the wall for them to escape through. Upon entering the next room (where Kit takes notice of some shelves containing old equipment left behind by the sandhogs, such as fuses), Ashley points out that the rats are ascending up an old wooden staircase, but it isn’t long until another equipment-induced rumbling causes one of the walls to give out and more water to start rushing in. Everyone gets up the staircase and see an entryway that leads to an unfinished sewer system above, but when Cooper suddenly appears alive in the water below, Kit decides to head back down the staircase and rescue him. However, after he gets Cooper up to the others, another tunnel shift causes a beam to break loose from the ceiling and destroy the section of the staircase that he is standing on, sending him into the water. Kit yells for everyone to forget about him and keep going, but Maddy tries to extend a shirt provided by Steven for him to grab onto. Unfortunately, yet another shift causes her to fall into the water as well. Kit tells Steven to take the others and go, and even though he and the other survivors are not ready to give up on him or Maddy, they soon realize that there is nothing they can do to save either of them, so Steven throws down a flashlight to Kit before he and the others head up into the sewer system just seconds before the entry point collapses. The group manages to reach a grate in a parking garage, and after banging on it to attract attention, they are found by Grace and Norman just as Norman is about to take Grace home. They call emergency services to the scene, who rip the grate off and get the survivors out, but when Grace notices that George is not among them, she breaks down crying.

Meanwhile, Kit grabs some fuses and tells Maddy that they are going to have to swim all the way back to the tunnel, clearly having a plan in mind. When they stop in the bunk room to get some air before diving again, Kit explains to her that they are going to have to try a blowout if they hope to survive (despite the fact that such an effort could possibly kill them both). After reaching the nearly-fully-submerged tunnel, they climb up the wall of mud to the ceiling, where Kit puts a few explosive charges close together, ties the fuses to them, and then drives the bomb as deep as he can into the mud. He and Maddy then light the fuses and swim down to the bottom of the tunnel so they can take cover from the explosion, which Kit hopes will blast out the mud and rip the roof open enough to make the pressure build-up in the tunnel shoot them both up to the surface of the river. However, shortly after Kit reaches the bottom, another shift in the tunnel caused by the clean-up crew causes a huge pile of mud to come loose from the wall and bury him. Maddy tries to pull him out, but then the bomb explodes and tears the roof wide open, and the force of the suction starts to pull Maddy upward. She tries to keep a hold of Kit’s hand, but she loses her grip on him, and she quickly shoots all the way up to the surface of the Hudson River. Moments later, Kit’s body surfaces floating face-down, so Maddy swims over to him and turns him over so he can breathe. Seconds later, they are rescued by a U.S. Coast Guard boat.

Kit and Maddy are taken back to shore, and Kit is placed on a gurney and taken towards an ambulance with Maddy walking right behind him. Frank (Dan Hedaya) – an alternate chief E.M.S. medic who is acquainted with Kit – then approaches Kit and drapes a jacket reading “Chief” over his body to keep him warm, a possible sign that Kit might be getting his job back as the Chief of the E.M.S. Upon noticing Grace in the crowd, Kit gets the medics to stop, and he gives her the bracelet. As Kit and Maddy continue on towards the ambulance, Maddy tells Kit that, since they are both going to the hospital, she wants to ride with him. He decides to let her, but on the condition that they take the bridge.

ikes when runaway robbers in a getaway car hit truck full of explosives in the tunnel connecting Manhattan and New Jersey. Survivors are left in a weakened tunnel blocked at both exits. As Kit Latura approaches the tunnel, he sees the impact and knows he gotta take action. With time running out, he enters the tunnel through a system of maintenance walkways. Can he get the survivors out before the tunnel fills up?