Con Air
Year of release : 1997
Run time : 1h55m
Genre : Action / Crime
Cast : Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames, Danny Trejo, Dave Chappelle, Monica Potter
Cameron Poe is an Army Ranger who’s been honorably discharged.That very evening when he gets off the boat, he goes straight to his wife, who works at a bar.
While they get reunited, kiss and hug, and dance together, some redneck bothers them, trying to get her to drink with him and his buddies, bragging about how he’s a regular. Cameron leaves him be, but this doesn’t sit well with the redneck and his friends, as they wait for them outside when they leave, and start a fight.
Cameron fights them, and ends up k1lling one of them.
His lawyer is trying to make him plead guilty, so he could get 4 years and serve 1, so he does, and he gets between 7-10 years, because he was in the military.
Cameron spends his time in prison writing to his wife and daughter, reading many books, learning Spanish, and being friends with his cell mate.
8 years later, he is being released on parole on the 14th of July, exactly on his daughter’s birthday.
He boards the Jailbird flight to Alabama, a flight the worst of the worst prisoners is on (like a mass murderer, a terr0rist, a career criminal who’s done it all and escaped twice, a serial r@pist,a serial k1ller ).
Making sure the flight goes smoothly, US marshall Vince Larkin and DEA agent Duncan Malloy are supervising it.
Larkin puts a special agent on the plane, to get information from a narcoterr0rist.The man and Malloy insist he gets on the plane with a gun, which he eventually does.
The career criminal, Cyrus the Virus, the terr0rist nicknamed Diamond Dog, and an arsonist nicknamed Pinball take out the devices they had under their skin (Cyrus and Diamond Dog ) or that they have swallowed (Pinball), and while the first two work on opening their handcuffs, Pinball throws gasoline on the inmate next to him,setting him on fire. The other two take over the plane, k1lling a few inmates, police officers and one pilot.
In the confusion and the mayhem created, Cameron’s cell mate and friend’s insulin dose was broken, and he needs it.
The r@pist wants to get down to business with the lady cop (by the way, I don’t understand why would a woman be on such a plane), but Cameron stops him. Cyrus, who’s in charge, agrees with him, and threatens the r@pist that if he doesn’t control himself he’s gonna fly off the plane.
The inmates asks the remaining police officers how many prisoners are supposed to get on on their next stop, and how many are supposed to get off. They find out the men who were supposed to get off were k1lled in the commotion. So they gag the police officers,putting bags over their heads and prepare them for transfer.
Cameron wants to leave too, to alert the police about the situation, as his friend needs his shot, but when he sees they gag them he changes his mind, as it will be hours until he can alert anyone, and his friend could be dead by then, and the lady cop r@ped, and he stays on the plane.
I enjoyed the movie. I liked how it was directed. I liked the colors.It felt like a summer movie.It did remind me of the Michael Bay movies because of the vibe, the colors and the direction (it was directed by Simon West).
Larkin always has the right ideas, but Malloy is always contradicting him, doing things his way.
Con Air comes from a line Cyrus says after taking over the plane.
One thing that bothered me was Cameron’s ugly hair. What I didn’t get was, how come everybody in the prison system had a good haircut except for Poe! He was the only one looking disheveled.
Another thing was the destruction of property, there’s this beautiful car that gets caught in the hook attached to the plane, that flies for a while then drops from the sky.
The acting was good.
The soundtrack was so and so. I did like “How do I live” performed by LeAnn Rimes originally when she was 14 years old,but sang by Trisha Yearwood for the movie, as the movie executives thought LeAnn to be too young to sing such a song .
The visual effects were good.
The movie has a 75% popcorn meter from the Rotten Tomatoes audiences and a 6.8 user score from Metacritic, against a 59% tomato meter and a 52 meta score, and a 6.9 rating on IMDB.
Cinema Score audiences graded the movie a B+.
The movie grossed 224 million dollars at the box office, against a budget of 74 million dollars.
It was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.
The movie received quite a few award nominations, including for 2 Oscars (for Best Song and Best Sound), and a Grammy for Best Song Written Specifically for a Movie or Tv.
You can watch the full movie on the OK.Ru platform.
Rating : Worth a watch !