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Cameron Poe: Nicolas Cage Vince Larkin: John Cusack Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom: John Malkovich Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones: Ving Rhames Johnny "Johnny-23" Baca: Danny Trejo Garland "The Marietta Mangler" Greene: Steve Buscemi Baby-O O'Dell: Mykelti Williamson Guard Sally Bishop: Rachel Ticotin Duncan Malloy: Colm Meaney "Swamp Thing": M.C. Gainey Directed by Simon West. Written by Scott Rosenberg. Running time: 115 minutes. Rated R (for strong violence and language). |
Con Air is the perfect example of a Hollywood Blockbuster Summer Event Movie. It is filled with Hollywood stars, extraordinary special effects of death-defying scenes and as many catch phrases you can think of. These movies are like a dime a dozen during the summer and saturate all the hype and attention. I am so sicken by these kinds of movies (I am even more sickened that I continue to watch them) that I have decided to use this space to give a message to you, the reader. The true mission of these movies is not to entertain you, but to make enough money so that the people who worked on it can ask for a hefty raise when they get signed on to do another movie. The dream situation would be this: "After spending two hundred million, the producers hope that they can pick up an issue of "Variety" and read the opening box office weekend gross was around seventy-five to a hundred million. The movie would then have a total gross of 600 million, both domestic and foreign." Hollywood has become a business and action "event movies" seem to be the easiest way to make a studio profitable.
In the end, I had one reaction that popped into my mind when the movie ended: "I want my two hours back." It is a disgrace that these kinds of movies get more attention than other more deserving films. It is a wonder that they even get made. These movies serve really as an insult to the public since we know what to expect after watching a hundred other clones over the last couple of years. So let me pose this question, why do we still watch it?
Con Air is produced by none other than Jerry Bruckheimer, who with his late partner Don Simpson have produced many famous "event movies" that contain mind-numbing high octane action and high-tech special-effects. Some were quality entertaining films like Beverly Hills Cop and Crimson Tide while others made you want to cringe Bad Boys and Beverly Hills Cop II. Con Air would of course fall in the latter category. Con Air is the more self-effacing type of action movie like The Rock, playing more to the humorous aspect of action.
The plot of the movie is that Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is finally returning home after being locked up for eight years in prison for protecting his family from drunken goons. After paying his debts to society, he gets to come home in a plane, which is accompanied by the most vile and freakish sort of villains the world has ever seen. They are being transported to a new maximum-security facility. Now you may ask why would anyone want to assemble them in one place instead of taking them individually, especially as small, crowded and isolated as a transport plane. Obviously the writer had no answer either.
Let's meet this lovable cast of scoundrels. The leader is Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), who proudly boasts that his last evaluation reported him insane; Nathan "Diamond Dog" Jones (Ving Rhames), a black militant who is second in command, but is waiting for an opportunity to backstab Cyrus; Johnny "Johnny-23" Baca (Danny Trejo), where the number represents the number of rape convictions, but "It would've been Johnny 600 if they knew the whole story;" Garland "The Marietta Mangler" Greene (Steve Buscemi), a serial killer with 37 victims under his belt, who arrives wearing an outfit that suspiciously looks like the one Hannibal Lecter wore in Silence of the Lambs and a couple of others who are just plain evil or look it. Garland Greene seems to be most respected and feared by everyone on-board. After Greene is strapped into his cage with a barrage of restraints, Cyrus protests, "This is no way to treat a national treasure!" He also adds, "Love your work."
After the band of "supervillians" eventually take over the C-123K transport, it is up to Poe to stop them. How can he do it? Did I forget to mention he was an Army Ranger? Unfortunately, he has additional problems that include saving his friend from prison, Baby-O O'Dell (Mykelti Williamson), a diabetic who must have an insulin shot or die, a female guard named Sally Bishop (Rachel Ticotin), who could be number 24 (or 601, depending on how you see it) for Johnny 23, trying to clear his name as one of the hijackers and returning to his family in one piece.
Meanwhile, on the ground, an U.S. marshal named Vince Larkin (John Cusack) and a DEA agent Duncan Malloy (Colm Meany) fight over how to deal with the situation. Malloy wants to blow the plane, which forces Larkin to convince him not to for the whole movie. The conversations consist of mostly yelling and screaming at each other.
Despite its capacity and tolerance for violence, it never gets too serious and tries to find the lighter side when it runs into serious situations. These scenes include Johnny 23 with the female guard and a tense moment when Greene meets a little girl who is hosting a tea party. The action sequences are extravagant, which is expected from a Bruckheimer produced movie. The two that jump out is a car being dragged by a transport, crashing into various objects and using the Las Vegas Strip as an emergency runway.
The cast is full of talented people, who are mostly known from independent films and stray from such "Hollywood" movies. John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames and John Cusack give good performances, but with little character development or personality, they become one dimensional. Malkovich is the best of the cast as he gives his dry, laid back version of a villain that we were familiar with in The Line of Fire. My only hope for these guys is that they got paid a vast amount of money so they could focus their attention on independent films.
Words are not wasted in action movies, mainly because it takes up valuable time of violence and mayhem. Basically the dialogue is used to set up something in the future or a quick attempt at humor. Con Air is your basic high testosterone sort of summer action movie. You see alot of action sequences (Explosions, gunfights and more explosions), special effects and stars on the screen. At the end of the movie, I guess you feel ecstatic because the hero survived and all the villains were killed off in glorious fashion. But of course, you would have to forget all that property damage, innocent lives and senseless violence that you witnessed during the movie. Grade: C+
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