Con Air (R18, 117mins) Directed by Simon West ***½
The middle instalment (sandwiched between The Rock and Face/Off) of the mid-’90s Nicolas Cage-starring “Holy Trinity” of action films.
“Die Hard on a prison transport plane” that marked the career highpoint for former music video specialist director Simon West. A film that deservedly won the Golden Raspberry Award for the Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property and is perhaps one of the most bombastic, bizarre and bat-shit crazy blockbusters ever to emerge from Hollywood.
Twenty-five years on – and as it heads back into select Kiwi cinemas this week for belated “special anniversary” screenings – it’s racist and sexist elements might have amplified and aged badly, but it still offers wall-to-wall action and general mayhem (you almost expect a character to be called that) from the opening frames to the truly chaotic Los Vegas Strip-set finale.
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Con Air deservedly won the Golden Raspberry Award for the Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property in 1998.
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At the centre of it all is Cage’s Cameron Poe, a former US Army Ranger Sergeant whose life is turned upside down within two minutes of the movie (after the strains of Trish Yearwood’s Oscar-nominated How Do I Live have barely subsided), after a trio of Mobile, Alabama good ol’ boys don’t like his objection to their treatment of his pregnant waitress wife Tricia (Monica Potter). An attempt to jump him with a knife ends with a fatal result and a court appearance for Poe.
And here’s where the high-concept, high-octane Jerry Bruckheimer magic that also gave us Top Gun, Flashdance and Days of Thunder stars to work its charm.
Declaring that provocation can be no defence for a man trained to be a deadly weapon, Poe find himself serving seven-to-10 years in a Federal Prison – and there’s still only a touch over 360 seconds on the clock.
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Nicolas Cage’s Cameron Poe and THAT mullet.
Cue vignettes of that passage of time, punctuated by regular care packages of corn chips, Hot Rod magazines and “Snowballs”, as well as charming correspondence between our incarcerated hero and the daughter he’s never met – Casey (Landrey Allbright).
After a further montage of him learning Spanish and keeping ripped, he’s got parole and headed home in time to see Casey for her birthday.
Unfortunately, someone’s had the bright idea for him to hitch a lift aboard “Jailbird One”, which on this particular flight just happens to be also transporting a nightmarish collection of murderers, rapists and thieves, all bound for a new Super-Max prison facility designed to warehouse “the worst of the worst”.
Those onboard include mass murderer Billy Bedlam (Nick Chinlund), Black Guerrillas leader Nathan “Diamond Dog” Jones (Ving Rhames) and a man who claims to have killed more people than cancer – Cyrus “the Virus” Grissom (John Malkovoich). A “poster child for the criminally insane”, the latter has managed two study for two degrees and incite three riots while serving his time so far.
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John Malkovich’s Cyrus the Virus leads the mutinous criminals aboard Jailbird One.
Directing flight operations is US Marshal Vince Larkin (John Cusack), a man convinced that the whole operation “is a well-oiled machine – the only thing we gotta worry about is the stale peanuts and a little turbulence”.
Within minutes of Jailbird One lifting off, not helped by the Drug Enforcement Agency’s Duncan Malloy’s (Colm Meaney) covert decision to arm an undercover agent in clear violation of all protocols, he’s proven to be hopelessly wrong.
As Poe pithily observes of the carnage around him to his old cellmate Baby-O (Mykelti Willamson): “They somehow managed to get every creep and freak in the universe onto this one plane. And then somehow managed to let them take it over. And then somehow managed to stick us right smack in the middle.”
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Con Air is an over-the-top, slightly overcooked, but you’ll-be-sad-when-it’s-over maelstrom of macho posturing and ‘90s Hollywood madness.
As you might expect, from there, the action never relents, as Poe attempts to infiltrate and undermine the hijacking criminals, Larkin and Malloy try to down the plane and Malkovich’s Grissom malevolently hams it up like a carving station at a Christmas function.
Writer Scott Rosenberg (High Fidelity) throws in plenty of conundrums, curveballs and extra characters, including Steve Buscemi’s seemingly benign Hannibal Lecter-esque Garland Greene, but, for the most part, after about the 40-minute mark, the plot begins to melt away and the pyrotechnics and electric guitar riff-dominated soundtrack kick in. There’s a pink soft toy bunny for Poe to protect, a sandstorm during a scheduled stop in Carson City and the unforgettable sight of the plane towing Malloy’s 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster.
“On any other day that might seem strange,” Poe deadpans, a statement it’s hard not to agree with when watching this over-the-top, slightly overcooked, but you’ll-be-sad-when-it’s-over maelstrom of macho posturing and ‘90s Hollywood madness.
Con Air is now available to stream on Disney+. Special 25th anniversary screenings will take place in select Kiwi cinemas from November 3.
