#31: CON AIR

 

Starring: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Colm Meaney, Mykelti Williamson and Rachel Ticotin. Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, music by Mark Manchina. Written by Scott Rosenberg, directed by Simon West. Budget $75 million. Running time 115 minutes. Originally released in 1997.

After serving at five or six years in a maximum security prison, convicted murderer and ex-army Ranger, Cameron Poe (John Cusack) is getting released and he's eager to race back home to meet his daughter for the very first time. To aid him, the authorities stick him on Con Air, a regular air-flight that transports prisoners across America for prison-transfers, court dates and the such. Unfortunately for Poe, the flight he's on has been booked to take all of the worst criminals in America to a new uber-super-dooper maximum security prison. Among the literal worst-of-the-worst is John Malkovich's Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom, Steve Buscemi's Garland 'The Marietta Mangler' Greene, Ving Rhames's Nathaniel 'Diamond Dog' Jones and M.C. Gainey's Earl 'Swamp Thing' Williams.
Gosh, I hope these criminals geniuses don't plan an extraordinary escape plan take over the plane and escape leaving only one good man, Cameron Poe, to thwart their nefarious plans and save the day. Meanwhile on the ground, John Cusack's U.S. Marshal Vincent Larkin and Com Meaney's DEA Agent Duncan Malloy race around in Corvette Stingrays and Apache helicopters trying to stop them.

Released in 1997 seemingly with the express intention of out-doing the Rock, which was released just a year earlier, Con Air is an outrageous, huge, action-packed juggernaut of an action pic delivering the cinematic sugar rush equivalent of 5lbs of chocolate-dipper, sugar coated popcorn covered in caramel sauce. It's ludicrous, ridiculous, unbelievably silly, stupidly loud and pants down daft. Nicolas Cage in his absolute physical peak looks fantastic as the hench, but not too hench, Cameron Poe, perhaps his best ever character name. The action, which never lets up culminates in an utterly explosive plane crash that seems to last for at least 30 minutes, it's similar in tone to the added action beat in Speed, the plane crash in the middle of Las Vagas, obviously, triggers the final act showdown between Cameron and Cirus and ends with a 'Speed-esque' decapitation that feels genuinely like a two-fingers up to Dennis Hopper's character's demise. It's so outlandish and OTT it actually has the effect of making the film seem, dare I say, 'silly'.

Cage made three fantastic action films between 97-98, the first The Rock, Con Air and finally Face/Off, from Michael Bay, Simon West and John Woo, and of the three this is by far the most immediate and light-hearted.

It's bat-shit crazy with an ridiculous plot, utterly implausible characters and a truly stupid film, if it wasn't for the god awful music, which truly dates this film, I think this would be a contender for a solid 9/10, as it is it's just a worthy 7. And a lot of that comes down to John Malkovich's performance, he really seems to be having a blast with the role. That said, does everyone.

7/10