Buckle Up

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2020)

Cameron Poe is hitching a ride home, but he is catching a lift with the deadliest cons alive. These guys are the stuff of nightmares from rapists and murderers to three prisoners on death row who turn their transport plane, The Jailbird, into "Con Air." This film is the newest film with Nicholas Cage and is one of his better performances since this is a vehicle for him. Other than a questionable accent, the action is top-notch, and a bang from start to finish and Cage delivers.
It's about Cameron Poe (Nicholas Cage) who ends up jailed when he defends himself and his wife against three thugs, and Cameron kills one of them, and he gets a harsh sentence for seven years. Years go by, and Cameron gets put on a plane that is transporting dangerous convicts to a new supermax facility. Once they take off, It's not long before it gets hijacked by a convicted murderer, Cyrus Grissom (John Malkovich) and Cameron must rely on his military skills to save alive and bring the Plane down. On the ground, a US Marshall, Vince Larkin (John Cusack) tries to figure out who Cameron is and where the cons are taking the Plane to.
One of the more exciting scenes in the movie is when the prisoners are getting unloaded from a bus in belly chains, and the first three cons are what the Chief Prison guard calls "Two Hardcopies and a Genuine Heraldo interviewee." These guys are locked in separate cages, and they are Cyrus "the Virus" Grissom, whose psych eval declares him insane. The character is psychotic genius and the brains behind everything. Diamond Dog (Ving Rhames) is the Heraldo interviewee who is a black militant waiting to make his move and a serial killer called Billy Bedlam (Nick Chinlund), who makes Hitler look like a carebear. Towards the end of the film, another character gets brought on board, and he is a violent serial killer called Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi), complete with a Hannibal Lector mask. Cyrus admires him and orders him released from his restraints. He says, "This is no way to treat a national treasure." and adds, "Love your work." See what I mean by Insane? Poe is stuck with all these creeps and about another twelve cons aboard a rickety C-123 Transport.
Onboard is also a friend of Poe's who he met when he was locked up, Baby-O (Mykelti Williamson), and when he falls ill, Poe refuses to leave him behind to die. Also, there is a female guard, Sally Bishop (Rachel Ticotin), who Poe saves from a crazed rapist, Johnny 23 (Danny Trejo), who wants her so he can be called Johnny 24. So who is Poe? He was a decorated Army Ranger who got unfairly locked up because he got forced to defend himself and his wife from three vicious criminals during a rainy night. When he appears in court, he is called a "Deadly Weapon" because of his military skills. When he gets locked down, his daughter, Casey, is about to be born. The ride home is Poe's parole so that he can see her for the first time.
On the ground is US Marshall, Larkin, who never does anything out of character and tries to figure a way to bring the Plane down and why, at one point, Poe had a chance to get off the Plane, and he didn't do it. The single biggest mistake this movie makes is Colm Meaney. This guy cannot act, and he plays a dingdong mad dog DEA Agent who wants to shoot the Plane down. He is an unbelievably stupid character and a typecast who never says the right thing. There is something that he does just before everyone climbs on board the Plane that leads to fatal results for someone. Anyway, when the chaos starts because of one of the cons and the three prisoners get free, one of the guards has a handcuff arm violently driven into his neck before the other guards can get to him. It's also interesting to see how Cyrus easily he fools a group of cops shortly after the hijacking, and you can believe this guy is smart and knows what he is doing.
Cage pulls off an energetic performance, but Malkovich has the charisma that forms the plot. Into the second act, it takes place on an old airfield that ends in a massive shootout with the army and the cops, and it results in a lot of explosions, but It's how Cyrus puts a brilliant plan together at the last minute. The cons try to dig the Plane out, so Cyrus stalls the authorities with propane tanks and a lot of other things to make a loud bang. Now, during all this, there is one questionable element to the film that skates on bad taste, and I'm not sure why it's here. The Garland Greene character has pretended Tea with a little girl who seemingly lives someone on the airfield alone. It makes us believe that she will become his next victim, and it results in the toddler teaching him how to sing that leads to humour when the Plane is going down, but the sequence is really out of place.
Jerry Bruckheimer is the producer of the movie, and he did "The Rock," and Jerry is a great producer, but like his other movies, this one is loud and noisy as well. What stands out is the first time director, Simon West, a British music video director who has a visual style that goes along with the elaborate action sequences. The strangest element has to do with the end credits and "Sweet Home Alabama" playing over a montage of the cast. Even more, so is the unexpected weirdness of someone playing poke, and I suppose this is the film's final shot at humour to leave it on a high note. I enjoyed the movie for the most part. It knows its absurd, but that's part of the fun. Its a high flying action bang with less seriousness than "The Rock," but its a wild thrill ride to kick off the summer.