A goofy comedy posing as a thrill ride.

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2003)

* 1/2 out of ****
I love action films, but as I was watching Con Air, I kept asking myself, "where's all the action?" Apparently, director Simon West decided he'd hold off the typical gun fights, car chases, and big explosions until the last half-hour. Big mistake. This is a Jerry Bruckheimer production, and I don't expect to have to wait 90 minutes to get to the action, which even then, is extremely disappointing in how routine all of it turns out to be.

So, instead, it might be more applicable to view this as a comedy about a relatively simple situation that goes awry. After all, this whole mess begins when an army ranger named Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) defended his pregnant wife and killed a man. Even though he was just defending himself and his wife and pleads guilty, he still gets the maximum sentence because he's seen as a "deadly weapon" in the judge's eye. It's too bad Cage, normally an okay actor, plays his role like a mix between Elvis and Forrest Gump, and as if to make the latter more obvious, Poe's best friend is none other than Mykelti Williamson, AKA Bubba!
This Poe Fella and his buddy manage to get on board a plane full of the most dangerous criminals alive (meaning a good number of these inmates are all from the same prison!), who come up with an escape plan that's executed perfectly despite them having never even set foot on the plane before. Poe has to try and thwart them, and this goes on for pretty much the entire movie.
So what we have here is a film with a lame protagonist, even lamer villains, and average action scenes that don't get the pulse pounding. Oh, yeah, and there's constant bickering between John Cusack and Colm Meaney over whether or not to shoot the plane down. The answer should be a no-brainer, but since that description fits the movie itself, you can guess what they decide to do with the plane.
I get a lot of amusement over the family reunion in the movie's final scenes, where Poe meets his wife and his daughter, whom he's never seen before. Though probably intended as heart-rending drama, this reunion is about as well-handled as something you might see on the Lifetime Channel, maybe even worse.
(Spoiler) Take a look at the scene where Malkovich's villain is killed. It's pretty obvious he falls in such a position so that his feet, and not his head, would be facing that crushing machine. This is the kind of haphazard editing that's displayed throughout the whole film, so it's of no surprise Simon West would go on to direct Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, the worst film of 2001. Hey, I actually see that as a good thing, since it kept West from directing Black Hawk Down, which was, ironically enough, the best film of 2001.