Con Air tells the story of a group of prisoners who high jack a prisoner transport plane called The Jailbird. This plane is used to transport prisoners between various prisons. On the day of the high jack Americas most notorious make prisoners are being transported to a new supermax prison, but a prisoner has arrange, with the help of his fellow convicts, to take the plane and make their break for freedom. Led by Cyrus the virus.
The one thing they did not take into consideration was a prisoner by the name of Cameron Poe. He is one of a number of prisoners who was not in on the high jack and is in fact only on board for a ride back home to Alabama where he will be released. Poe was incarcerated after killing a man in a brawl. He was protecting his pregnant wife and receives a harsher sentence due to his U.S. Ranger training. He remains on board as a friend cannot leave and there is a female prison guard aboard the plane whom a serial rapist has already tried to violate. Poe does all he can to de-rail the escape attempt.

I remember when I first saw this film and thought, yeah this is my kind of movie. It has a hero, and a bucketload of villains. There are some amazing performances in this film by actors who I first discovered in this movie. Nicolas Cage plays it straight up as the hero. John Malkovich is a force of nature as Cyrus The Virus. Ving Rhames is solid as Diamond Dog, Steve Buscemi is just plane creepy as Garland Greene (even the other cons are weary of him, except Cyrus). There is also a smart performance form John Cusack as the U.S. Marsahll who’s leading the search for the escaping cons. There is also solid support from actors like Danny Trejo, Colm Meaney, Nick Chinlund and M.C. Gainey.

This movie is a hell of a lot of fun to watch with some amazing performances and a little humour along with the action.

It’s well worth a watch if you want a fun movie with some action 🙂