Mayday — Characters & Cast

Initially survival and extraction; increasingly, loyalty to the one person who actually showed up for him, which puts him at odds with the institution that sent him.

Begins as a hotshot U.S. Navy pilot with total confidence in his mission and his side of the war, viewing Soviets as backward and evil. Stranded behind enemy lines when the operation implodes, he is forced into dependence on the very enemy he was trained to dehumanise. By the close he has learned he was too eager to believe the story he was given, and the film's ending has him embracing a very different definition of heroism than the one he flew in with.

Something between opportunism and a second chance — a man discarded by his own service finding a use for himself, and a person worth protecting.

A gruff ex-KGB agent with an open affection for American culture who discovers Troy and could easily turn him in. Instead he becomes guide, tormentor and eventual father figure. Branagh's performance was singled out for its swing between capable violence and startling softness — Reynolds described his co-star's ability to move from brutality to being "incredibly soft, kind and vulnerable" as a refreshing inversion of the genre's usual tropes.

Not established by the sources consulted.

Part of the ensemble surrounding the central duo on the Soviet side of the story. Reliable sources consulted did not confirm the character's name or full narrative function, so any detailed arc here would be speculation.