Rating: 7/10
Review date: August 12, 2003
Nicolas Cage stars as Cameron Poe, an ex-Army Ranger who is imprisoned for accidentally killing a man while defending his pregnant wife from assault. He was eventually paroled and is supposed to take the first available flight home. Unfortunately, that same flight contains the deadliest collection of criminals bound for a new prison facility. They managed to take over the plane and it�s up to Poe to stop them while making sure that he survives to see his wife and daughter�
Director Simon West made his directorial debut with this movie and I have to say that it is a solid and commendable attempt which deserved some recognition. The action scenes are quite well done and exciting although not as good as it could have been (bearing Die Hard and Air Force One in mind). Some of the scenes are not edited very well and it seems that they jumped too fast between one action sequence and another; however it doesn�t detract too much from the entertainment factor.
What make Con Air so interesting are the cool characters (especially the criminals) that are played by great assortment of casts. John Malkovich acted as the bad guy called Cyrus �The Virus� Grissom in one of his more memorable role (perhaps because of his baldy head?) with the addition of Steve Buscemi as the creepy and evidently disturbed Garland �The Marietta Mangler� Greene. I won�t spoil other characters here but they are quite unique in their own way and fun to watch as well.
As for the main man, Nicolas Cage performs quite well (love that hair of his) as you would expect from this kind of action movie. John Cusack�s role as U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin also shows some decent performance by his endless banter with DEA Agent Duncan Malloy (Colm Meaney).
Regeardless of all that, Con Air is laden with glaring plot holes that are sometimes made even more obvious by the bad editing as mentioned earlier. The camera work also partly contributes to this and quick cuts in some scenes don�t help to make it better.
Ultimately, Con Air is just another action movie which some people hate for its incredulity or enjoy for pure brainless entertainment.
I�m one of those who belongs the latter category so forget about the plot holes and you will be able to enjoy this movie as much as I can with the help of some funny dialogues, cool characters and tons of explosions. At least the filmmakers manage to include the excellent song �How Do I Live without You� (performed by Trisha Yearwood) which were nominated for an Oscar as Best Original Song although it didn�t win.
Memorable quote: �Put� the bunny� back� in the� box.
-Nicolas Cage as Cameron Poe-
(c) Martin Taidy 2003