"Con Air" - What a wild ride!

Rating: 10/10 (8 July 2011)

I have to say that 1997's Jerry Bruckheimer-produced, Simon West-directed "Con Air" is one of the best action films to come out during the cynical, seen-it-all late '90s. The film is over-the-top with over-the-top characters, dialogue and situations that are just too over-the-top to be truly believable and deliberately so. But damn it, is this movie good and endlessly re-watchable - 14 long years after the fact!
True to most Bruckheimer productions (it was only just Bruckheimer at this point because his long-time business partner Don Simpson had only just passed away the year before during their time on 1996's Michael Bay-directed "The Rock," and that film was dedicated to his memory), "Con Air" is loud, crazy, and there is not anything even remotely close to resembling a brain cell in sight during its 122-minute running time (this review is based on the extended version). But like I said, damn this movie is really good.
"Con Air" begins in the aftermath of the U.S. military's Operation Desert Storm in 1991, and U.S. Army Ranger Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) has just returned home to Mobile, Alabama, after his tour of duty overseas. Before he can break out the celebrations with his pregnant wife Tricia (Monica Potter), he gets into a drunken brawl with three locals and kills one of them. An unsympathetic judge sentences Cameron to no less than seven to 10 years behind bars for his crime.
Eight years passes and the day Cameron has eagerly awaited has finally come: he's been paroled, and he's on his way home to reunite with Tricia and see his young daughter Casey (Landry Allbright) for the very first time on her birthday (July 14). He's hitching a ride home on the U.S. Marshal's prisoner-transport plane, The Jailbird, along with his buddy Mike "Baby-O" O'Dell (Mykelti Williamson). This same flight is a special one, because it is also transporting some of this country's most lethal criminal offenders to a brand-new maximum-security penitentiary in Alabama - a place that has been "designed to house the worst of the worst... most of these guys are lifers, some on death row," one official exclaims.
Some of these "colorful," over-the-top characters Cameron and "Baby-O" are sharing this ride with include arsonist and dope addict Joe "Pinball" Parker (comedian Dave Chappelle), who is actually one of the least dangerous of all these hardened criminals and is essentially a nice guy; the notorious serial rapist "Johnny-23" (Danny Trejo) - "23" standing for 23 counts of rape - and who has his eyes set on the flight's sole female, Guard Sally Bishop (Rachel Ticotin); Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones (Ving Rhames), a former general in a black militant organization who blew up an NRA meeting; mass murderer William "Billy Bedlam" Bedford (Nick Chinlund), who proudly boasts that he's serving eight consecutive life sentences for killing his cheating wife's entire family, even the dog; the soft-spoken, yet weaselly Hannibal Lecter-wannabe Garland Green (the weaselly Steve Buscemi), "The Marietta Mangler," who went on a serial-killing spree that spanned up and down the entire Eastern seaboard; and the notorious criminal mastermind Cyrus "Cyrus the Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), "who likes to brag that he's killed more men than cancer."
Predictably, some of these convicts, led by "The Virus," get loose during the middle of the flight, kill some of the guards and take control of the plane, which he not-so-subtly re-names "Con Air" for a trip to a non-extradition country somewhere south of the border. Cameron and "Baby-O" realize they're in way over their heads on this flight. Meanwhile on the ground, U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack) clashes with DEA Agent Duncan Malloy (Colm Meaney) over how to bring the situation to a resolution that will hopefully please everybody but it appears that the only one capable of saving the day is Cameron.
"Con Air" is loud, brash, and over-the-top (did I say that it was over-the-top already several times?). It's hard to believe that Michael Bay WASN'T in the director's chair this time, since it contains many of his trademarks including fast editing, crazy characters, outlandish dialogue, stunning action sequences, explosions, car chases, and shootouts. What involvement he had, if any, on this picture is unclear, but it is clear that Simon West definitely took his cues from Bay and definitely knew how to stage the picture in his vain. That goes to show you Bay's influence in movies these days.
Cage is good in another one of his trademark low-key performances, since this action flick was made to cash in on his massive popularity following his Oscar win for "Leaving Las Vegas" (1995). It's clear the actor worked pretty hard on his Southern accent and hand-to-hand combat skills as well as his physical appearance in order to beef up for the role. The actors playing the convicts seem to be having the most fun here, though, and let loose with over-the-top (there's that hyphenate again!) theatrics and performances, especially the lunatic criminal mastermind Cyrus the Virus played by John Malkovich. He's made a career out of playing creepy, compelling psychopathic bad guys (like in "In the Line of Fire"), and with his role as the steely-eyed "The Virus," he has more cause to celebrate as this is one of his greatest portrayals of movie villainy.
"Con Air" is one boldly energetic and exciting action flick. I've seen the movie well over a dozen times since it first came out in 1997 and it's never lost its luster or ability to be exciting, brain-dead entertainment. Trust me, it's one wild ride you'll want to take again and again!
10/10