Con Air

For action fans, the 1980s provided a lot of fun and highly enjoyable films but the 1990s were far from a pale imitation and much of that is thanks to the films from Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson, with many of these starring Nicolas Cage front and centre, when he too was at the peak of his powers. Two years after winning an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas and one year after The Rock, Con Air released in 1997 with him now taking the spotlight that he had previously shared with Sean Connery. This would also be the same year that saw the release of Face/Off so the action genre was certainly thriving.

Con Air sees Cage's returning U.S. Ranger to his hometown in Alabama where is pregnant wife is working at a bar but he gets caught in an altercation with some troublesome locals and a fight breaks-out. One pulls a knife and Cage's army training in self-defence kicks-in but it results in the accidental killing of one of the locals. So it's off to prison for many years and having served his time in the slammer, he flown onboard a prison place with a bunch of infamous criminals who are being transferred but have no intention of going to another jail.

Make the idea of a high-concept thriller quite literal, Con Air is directed by Simon West who hasn't made many notable films with the exception of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider but he really does deliver a very enjoyable action flick that comes in just under two hours. There's a great cast too with Cage, John Malkovich, John Cusack and Ving Rhames who make full use of a sharp screenplay that knows exactly what this is. The action is also a lot of fun, releasing at a time when CGI was sparingly used, and it's only during the final action set-piece where this loses some momentum.

Con Air doesn't quite top The Rock for my money but it's a great vehicle for Cage and is perfect for any action fans who have yet to see this. Were this given a stronger ending then I feel it would skyrocket in my overall impressions. It is a light case of "the film is great fun until that ending" where it felt as if it was from a disjointed reshoot. Nonetheless, this is very much made as a crowd-pleasing action thriller and it does its job to the letter as Diane Warren's "How Do I Live" comes before the closing credits making for a satisfying action flick.