Con Air

There are movies out there that will never win Oscars or be remembered as the classics, but they still go down as legendary. And that is exactly what Con Air is. This movie is all together terrible and at the same time all together brilliant. There are other great 90's action films, other 90's action movies have as great of cast, and have similar insane and overboard action. But for some reason, I think this movie flies under the radar from time to time and should be recognized as one of the greats, even if John Cusack doesn't think so and only did it for the money.

Con Air follows the story of Cameron Poe (played by Nicholas Cage). Poe is a former Army ranger coming home from military service to his pregnant wife Tricia (played by Monica Potter). Unfortunately, the reunion is cut short when Poe is arrested for killing one of the men who tries to attack him and his wife outside of the bar where they had their reunion. He is sentenced to 7 years for ridiculous and movie plot exaggerated charges. When his sentence is done and he's put on parole, he is on his way home, hitching a ride on a plane full of deadly prisoners.

Now there are a couple of strings on this story. You've got Poe just wanting to get home, but then you've got a slew of introductions of the most vicious criminals a 90's movie can make up. You've got Cyrus "the virus" (played by John Malkovich) who is this self taught genius. You've got Diamond Dog (played by Ving Rhames) who is a black nationalist, you've got Steve Buscemi playing a Hannibal Lector style mass murderer.

But then you've got other side stories like Poe's cell mate Mike (played by Mykelti Williamson) who needs his insulin shot. You've got an undercover DEA agent with a very vague agenda. Even Dave Chapelle is thrown in there for good measure. All so serving as tinder for the explosion that is when Cyrus and his gang of prisoners orchestrate a plan to hijack the plane. But I can tell you that's only the beginning of this wild ride.

I won't go too in depth with Cyrus's plot because I highly recommend people check out this movie, but basically it's your typical 80's or 90's villain plot. The villain and his gang are irredeemably evil but undeniably entertaining. And then you've got a few good guys who are trying their best to stop him from getting away with his plot. One of them is Poe who begrudgingly takes on the role of amazing action hero when all he wants to do is get home to the daughter that he hasn't gotten a chance to meet yet. The other heroes are the ones on the ground and for a movie called Con Air, a lot of great action happens both in the air, and on the ground throughout the entire movie.

The side of the good guys is complete with John Cusack playing US Marshall Vince Larkin. He's the one in charge of tranportation of these prisoners and the entire movie, he's trying to find a way to bring the plane down and bring these criminals to justice.

Now it's pretty well documented that John Cusack hated this movie and only took the job for the money, but I don't think I've seen a better performance from him since. Maybe he didn't care so much that he just ended up having too much fun with the film but I loved every minute of him on screen and I thought that he and Nic Cage, along with everyone in the cast, just brought this movie legitimacy by taking a premise so ridiculous to life and doing it in a way that doesn't take itself too seriously, but never feels like a joke. Everyone is playing this movie just serious enough that the audience buys it and has a fun time, at least I did.

Con Air is the epitome of a 90's movie because it could never be made today. Like I've mentioned, you have just a wacky cast of characters from the stereotypical gay characters from the 90's which is frankly just offensive now, the typical Dave Chapelle role, and everything in between from Steve Buscemi playing Steve Buscemi if he was in the Silence of the Lambs, and John Malkovich being probably the best action villain since Hans Gruber in Die Hard in my opinion.

But the crowning jewel of course is Nicolas Cage.

Saying Nic Cage is hard to pin down is the understatement of the century. One minute he'll be playing a super boring character, more in his most recent films, then he'll do something like Leaving Las Vegas and win an Oscar. But I think where he's at his best is when he plays the very unique characters that if it was any other actor, you'd maybe see this kind of entertainment in a side character. But Cage is able to use his Cageisms to both create a really weird character and yet make him very likable and throw in some awesome 90's action poses in there as well. He did it in The Rock, National Treasure, (and other films) and he does it perfectly as Cameron Poe. Poe is a hillbilly from Alabama who is undoubtedly good. The whole premise is that he has multiple chances to get off the plane to go see his daughter, but he doesn't, not necessarily to stop Cyrus and his gang, but to save his friend and a female guard that Danny Trejo in no uncertain terms says he's going to rape if Poe isn't there (again, it was the 90's, there's no way this movie could be made now, and some of it really doesn't age well).

At the end of it all, you get a wild ride of action set piece after action set piece. Is it well acted? No. Is it uneven in it's execution? Yes. Is it still really awesome? Hell yeah! It's a Nicolas Cage movie, what did you expect?

It's kind of hard to point out the issues with this movie for two reasons. The first is, there are almost too many to count. The reality of it is, this is not that great of a movie if you're thinking about it critically. The characters are paper thin and really only based on stereotypes and cliches.

But at the same time, it's really kind of an amazing premise, an amazing cast that we'll never really get to see in this capacity ever again. John Cusack or John Malkovich will never be this cool again because they're more established actors and they are going off to do their art house films. We'll probably never see this Nic Cage again because he's really mellowed out in his older age. And yeah, there are parts of this movie that we'll never see again for good reasons, but it just feels like a really surreal ride that is constant action and just a mountain of fun.

I recommend checking out Con Air because it really is a time capsule of bizarness. It's very easy to pick up and enjoy the ride while it lasts. Just don't think too hard about it.

But those are my thoughts on Con Air. What do you think of this film? How does it rank up against the other action movies of the 90's? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposium as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks, I'll see you again soon!