CON AIR 1997
A film review by Timothy Voon
Copyright 1997 Timothy Voon
Cast: Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, John Malkovich, Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Mykelti Williamson, Rachel Ticotin, Colm Meaney, Danny Trejo, Nick Chinlund, David Chappelle, M.C. Gainey Director: Simon West Screenplay: Scott Rosenberg
There must be a good reason to justify mass destruction and excessively loud noise on screen. People will not warm to pure special effects and explosions which dazzle the eye like fireworks in the sky. So what better than to introduce a weather beaten, unfairly punished, tortured hero (Cage), who has served seven years in a penitentiary, for defending his honour and protecting his wife.
Years pass as quickly as the sands of an egg timer, and soon our hero has finished his sentence, and is aboard a plane carrying the convicted to their release destinations or to their new prison home. He must survive the journey of his life aboard 'Con Air' - 'Convicts-Onboard-No-smoking-And-Intellectual/Irreverent-Ratbags'.
It is the eve of his daughter's seventh birthday, and our hero will do anything, and I mean literally anything, to be able to give his child a birthday present in person. That is, of course, unless he gets waylaid by other honourable deeds, such as finding an insulin syringe for his best friend who is about to lapse into diabetic ketoacidosis, or preventing the rape of a female law enforcer.
Such honour is certainly lacking amongst our assorted passengers, ranging from the petty pick pocket, to the numeric rapist; from the politically-incorrect racist, to the intellectually well-achieved mass murderer, and of course a Hannibal Lector persona for added variety. Just as we all have different styles of reviewing movies, this rat-bag assortments of waylaid souls, intermingle to create a symphony of destruction in the hi-jack of the decade.
Some petty quirks and misdemeanours to point out. Diabetics who have not eaten the entire plane flight, will more likely develop hypoglycaemia (low blood sugars, before coma) than acidosis (high blood sugars, before coma). To which our hero, should be looking for jelly beans and not a syringe full of insulin. According to this movie, singing has life changing effects on the psychotic and mentally ill. Who knows? I guess anything is possible if you survive a plane crash in the middle of Vegas.
Comment: 'The Flight of the Repeated Offender.'
Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au
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