The man who makes the Manson Family look like the Partridge Family

Rating: 6/10 (7 January 2009)

"Con Air" was the second of two action-adventure films which Nicholas Cage made in the mid nineties for producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the first being "The Rock". (Cage and Bruckheimer were also to work together on the "National Treasure" films). In "The Rock" Cage's character, Stanley Goodspeed, is an unlikely hero, a scientific nerd who has spent his whole career in the laboratory but who, through an unlikely combination of circumstances, ends up as one of the two men who are left to foil the villains' scheme.
In "Con Air" Cage plays a more conventional hero, a former US Ranger named Cameron Poe, who is found guilty of manslaughter after killing a man in a bar-room brawl and sentenced to seven to ten years. Poe was trying to defend his pregnant wife Tricia from a drunken thug, and in real life, even if the authorities had pressed charges, he would have been able to plead self-defence, but doubtless the film-makers wanted to whitewash their hero by making him the victim of a miscarriage of justice rather than a genuine criminal. He is released after eight years, and is scheduled to be flown back to his home in Alabama on a plane belonging to the US Marshal service. Most of the other passengers on the plane are dangerous criminals being transferred to a new maximum security prison. During the flight these prisoners manage to escape, subdue the guards and seize control of the aircraft. As in "The Rock", Cage finds himself, through an unlikely combination of circumstances, with the responsibility of foiling the villains' scheme. Moreover, he has to do so before the authorities shoot the plane down.
Cage makes a rather more convincing action hero than in some of his other films, but this is one thriller where the hero tends to be overshadowed by the villains, most of whom are depicted as larger than life. The two most memorable are John Malkovich's "Cyrus the Virus", the leader the prisoners in their uprising, and Steve Buscemi's Garland Greene. Cyrus, a "poster child for the criminally insane", likes to brag that he has killed more men than cancer. Greene (described as the man who makes the Manson Family look like the Partridge Family) is a serial killer reminiscent of Anthony Hopkins' Hannibal Lecter, even wearing a similar type of mask. Like Lecter he is soft-spoken and outwardly polite, yet utterly creepy and frightening. There are also good contributions from John Cusack and Colm Meaney as two law enforcement officials of very different character. Meaney plays Duncan Malloy, a gung-ho, overzealous Drug Enforcement Administration official, only slightly less aggressive than the criminals themselves; it is he who wants to shoot down the plane with all on board. Cusack plays Vince Larkin, a more liberal US Marshal.
The film's central premise strikes me as an unlikely one; no doubt if it ever became necessary to move all of America's most deadly criminals to one prison the authorities would transport them separately, by road and under heavy armed guard. Action thrillers, however, do not always have to be realistic, and, as Roger Ebert pointed out, "Con Air" is a movie that knows it is absurd, and does little to deny it. For those who like intellectually undemanding thrillers this is a reasonably enjoyable example of the genre, with well handled action sequences. The script also displays a dark, sardonic wit, much of it deriving from the convicts' complete honesty about their crimes. (Johnny 23, a rapist whose nickname derives from the number of his convictions for rape, points out "It would be Johnny 600 if they knew"). At times it even verges on the surreal, especially during Garland Greene's strange tea party with that little girl. A film in which a serial killer ends up singing the hymn "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" must have its tongue firmly in its cheek. 6/10