Con Air is a 1997 action thriller directed by Simon West in his feature debut, written by Scott Rosenberg and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. Nicolas Cage plays Cameron Poe, a paroled Army ranger flying home to his wife and the daughter he has never met. His ride is a Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System aircraft, a Fairchild C-123 Provider converted into a prison transport plane and nicknamed the Jailbird. The plane is packed with men headed to a new supermax prison. Before it lands, the worst of them take it over.
Trailer, via Matchbox Cine.
A Transfer List of Killers and Thieves
The setup is clean and mean. Poe is a decorated ranger who killed a drunk in self-defense and drew an involuntary manslaughter charge. He served eight years and wrote letters the whole time. Now he just wants to reach Alabama by his daughter Casey’s birthday.
His cellmate and best friend is Mike “Baby-O” O’Dell, played by Mykelti Williamson, a diabetic who needs his insulin. That detail matters later, and the film knows it.
The transfer list is a rogues’ gallery. William “Billy Bedlam” Bedford, a mass felon played by Nick Chinlund. John “Johnny 23” Baca, a serial rapist. Nathan “Diamond Dog” Jones, a Black Guerrilla played by Ving Rhames. And Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom, a genius serial killer played by John Malkovich, who runs the whole thing once the plane is in the air.
Pinball Sets a Prisoner on Fire
The hijacking is the engine of Con Air, and it arrives fast. Joe “Pinball” Parker, played by Dave Chappelle, sets another prisoner on fire as a distraction. Grissom and Jones take the cockpit.
The plan is orderly for a mob of killers. Land at Carson Airport as scheduled, pick up more prisoners, switch planes, meet the financiers, and fly to a country with no extradition treaty.
U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin, played by John Cusack, is the man on the ground who has to figure out what is happening. He does not know that DEA agent Willie Sims is aboard undercover, and he does not know that Sims’ partner Duncan Malloy, played by Colm Meaney, smuggled a gun onto the flight. That gun is the kind of detail the film plants early and pays off with a body.
Sims tries to retake the plane. Grissom kills him.
Steve Buscemi and the Marietta Mangler
The film’s best asset is its ensemble, and it is deep. Steve Buscemi plays Garland Greene, the Marietta Mangler, a killer who gets one of the film’s strangest and most memorable scenes. Rachel Ticotin is Guard Sally Bishop. Monica Potter is Tricia Poe, Landry Allbright is Casey.
Then there is the bench. Danny Trejo, M. C. Gainey, Mykelti Williamson, Colm Meaney. Ty Granderson Jones as Blade, Emilio Rivera as Carlos, Doug Hutchison as Donald, David Ramsey as Londell, Conrad Goode as Lars “Viking” Olsson. Powers Boothe voices the Army officer at Poe’s leaving ceremony, uncredited. Bill Cusack, John’s brother, shows up as a Las Vegas EMT.
The casting lore is its own story. Michael Biehn, Jason Isaacs, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe and Tom Sizemore all auditioned for Grissom. Bruce Willis turned the part down. Malkovich was considered early, and he took it, and the film is better for it.
Two Performances in Two Different Movies
Here is where Con Air loses its footing. The film wants to be a hard-edged crime picture and a Nicolas Cage action comedy at the same time, and it does not choose.
Cage plays Poe with a drawl and a mullet and a stuffed bunny for his daughter. Malkovich plays Grissom with a lisp and a philosopher’s calm. Those two performances belong to different movies, and the film never reconciles them. It cuts from a man burned alive to a joke about a corpse falling on a motorist’s car.
That is the central problem. The action sequences are staged with real skill, and the musical score carries the big moments, but the movie keeps undercutting its own threat. A plane full of “pure predators” should feel like a pressure cooker. Too often it feels like a theme park.
The character development is thin in the same way. Poe gets a family and a backstory. Almost nobody else does. Diamond Dog is a slogan, not a person. Billy Bedlam is a name and a temper. The film gives its villains attitude instead of interiority, and then asks us to care when they die.
A Closed System That Nearly Works
The premise is genuinely good, and it is the reason Con Air still gets talked about. A prison transport plane is a closed system. Everyone aboard is dangerous. The hero is outnumbered by dozens and has no weapon and no badge. That is a machine for tension, and for long stretches the film runs it well.
The mid-air set pieces hold up. The Jailbird as a setting is specific and grimy in a way that big action films rarely bother with. Rosenberg’s script has a gift for a line, and the cast sells it.
The film also understands scale. It grossed over $224 million against a $75 million budget. Buena Vista released it through Touchstone Pictures on June 6, 1997. It earned Oscar nominations for Best Sound and for Best Original Song, “How Do I Live,” performed on the soundtrack by Trisha Yearwood. Those nominations are a fair read on where the craft actually lives: the sound team and the music did more for this film than the script did.
Malkovich Is the Best Thing Here
Con Air is a 116-minute action thriller that works as a ride and fails as a story. It has one of the great B-movie premises of the 1990s, a cast that could carry three films, and a director in Simon West who knows how to put a plane in the frame. What it does not have is a consistent idea of what it is.
The mixed reception it got in 1997 was correct, and time has not changed the math. The film became a cult favorite among action fans and the Nicolas Cage faithful, and that is the right home for it. It is a movie you quote, not a movie you defend.
The best thing in it is Malkovich. Grissom is the only character who seems to have thought about his own life, and Malkovich plays him with a quiet that makes the other performances look loud. The worst thing is the tonal whiplash, which turns real menace into a gag every time the film builds any.
So: 5.2 of 10. Con Air is worth the flight. Just do not expect the landing to hold.
The Numbers
- Title: Con Air (1997)
- Director: Simon West (feature debut)
- Writer: Scott Rosenberg
- Runtime: 116 minutes
- Release date: June 6, 1997
- Distributor: Buena Vista Pictures, through Touchstone Pictures
- Budget: $75 million
- Box office: over $224 million
- Oscar nominations: Best Sound; Best Original Song (“How Do I Live,” Trisha Yearwood)
- Metacritic: 52/100
- Score: 5.2 of 10
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