CON AIR (1997) A film review by Nick Schaden Copyright 1997 Nick Schaden
I have to admit, I'm always wary of big budget, "blockbusters". From the previews, "Con Air" did look a little too polished. However, mainly because of the star power, I went, and I'm glad I did. But first:
"Con Air" is the story of a nice young US Army Ranger Cameron Poe (Nicholas Cage) who gets in a drunken brawl protecting his wife (Monica Potter). Poe kills a man during the brawl, and gets hauled off to jail for several years. Finally, Poe is released on parole, but to get back home he has to hitch a flight with the absolute most meanest, sickest criminals in the world (hence the name "Con Air"). As you can probably guess, the plane is overtaken by the evil criminals (played notably by John Malkovich, Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames), and of course, the only man that can stop it? Bad boy Cameron Poe.
If you notice a sense of cynicism in that last paragraph, you're right. In short, the biggest weakness of "Con Air" is that the movie is just too polished and too predictable. Poe seems to get out of situations in the usual "just missed that explosion" kind of fanfare, and as always (a classic action movie cliché) the bad guys are too evil, too smart, and the guards and cops are just too stupid. To boot, the film's final sequence (a crash in the middle of Las Vegas) pushes the boundaries of reality more than most action movies.
But wait! All is not lost. What puts this action movie above much of the pack? First, the acting and characterization. While the southern drawl does sound fake, Nicholas Cage easily fulfills his role as action hero, and the supporting cast (while canned as "sell outs" by many other critics) works wonderfully. Furthermore, in many other action movies, we get characterization of only the main villain, with the rest of his henchmen playing little more than cannon fodder. However, in "Con Air", director Simon West fleshes out not just Malkovitch's character (the leader of the cons) but also takes time for the supporting cast too (Buscemi, Rhames and others).
Second, the movie is so slickly put together that the action seems to naturally fall into place, and the movie has a fast pace that seems to allow my previously mentioned problems to be less of a burden. All in all, while I know the movie suffered through one too many action movie clichés, and a not-so-original plot, "Con Air" flies with finesse and style, a quality that can't be found in many other action flicks.
Nick's Rating: +2 (Recommended)
*** Movies rated from -4 (worst) to +4 (best), 0 = average movie ***
-- Nick Schaden send your comments to: cpunut@uslink.net Check out all of Nick's reviews at: http://uslink.net/~cpunut/movies.html
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