Rent Con Air on Amazon Video (paid link)
Written by: Scott Rosenberg
Directed by: Simon West
Starring: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Colm Meaney, Mykelti Williamson, Dave Chappelle, M.C. Gainey, Danny Trejo
Rated: R
Watch the trailer
Plot
Newly-paroled ex-con and former U.S. Ranger Cameron Poe finds himself trapped in a prisoner-transport plane when the passengers seize control.
Verdict
It's a big, shallow action movie. As long as you don't think about any part of this for too long, it's entertaining. This certainly isn't a good movie and Cage's accent is a distraction, but it will hold your attention start to finish. The movie's only goal is to entertain and it does that.
It depends.
Review
Cusack and Malkovich have both stated they only did this movie for the money. Malkovich didn't like that the script was constantly being revised while filming.
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| Nicolas Cage plays Cameron Poe |
This sets up Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) as a good criminal, an Army Ranger imprisoned on flimsy charges to bolster the movie's plot. The movie uses "How Do I Live" as the backing for Poe meeting his pregnant wife. That song is reaching for an emotional moment far outside of its reach. It just feels cheesy to the point of parody. Second, how is Poe's wife pregnant? They could have at least given the actress a pillow to put under her shirt for any semblance of the claimed pregnancy. This introduction does a lot of work to quickly set up the plot. It's not far away from giving us text bullet points about this character. I get it, we're here for the plane, but I do appreciate this wants to provide some amount of background. Having watched the entire movie, I don't know why no one told Cage to drop the accent.
The recently released inmate Cameron Poe is placed on a plane with the worst criminals in the system. That seems like a clerical oversight. Things kick off quickly, but this movie has a tendency to be overly dramatic. This movie is meant to entertain, and everything else is ignored in pursuit of that goal. This mostly succeeds as long as you don't think about any part of this for very long. All of the B reel is how this movie can make objects falling or cars driving as dramatic as possible.
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| John Malkovich and Ving Rhames play Cyrus and Nathan |
Poe is the one good guy on a plane full of criminals. No one realizes he's good, so he's basically a double agent. That tension is constant as the other criminals are constantly on the verge of discovering his true nature. Poe has to help the bad guys just enough to blend in while scrambling for a way to alert the good guys.
These are the worst criminals in the country, led by Cyrus (John Malkovich). The problem is that they are cartoon villains, spouting one liners and dramatically acting like criminals. That's great for entertainment, not so much for realism. The thing is this movie doesn't care about realism. As far as it's goal to entertain, it does that. It certainly feels like an over the top nineties movie and that's not a bad thing.
This does keep going even when you think it's done, and nearly everything explodes. The movie's conclusion brings back "How Do I Live," but despite everything that's happened it's still a very cheesy moment.
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