INTRO: Nicolas Cage made his action movie debut with The Rock, a Jerry Bruckheimer production that was released in June of 1996. That same month, filming began on Cage and Bruckheimer’s second collaboration, a project that took Cage even further into action hero territory, casting him in a role that is said to have inspired the Kid Rock song “American Badass”. If The Rock is “Die Hard on Alcatraz”, this one could be called “Die Hard on a prisoner transport plane”… but its title is Con Air, and we’re looking back on it fondly in this episode of Revisited.
SET-UP: Con Air was inspired by a 1993 article in the Los Angeles Times about prisoner transport planes, which transfer convicted criminals from prison to prison throughout the United States. The executives at Touchstone Pictures thought this concept would make a solid foundation for an action movie – and it already came with a clever, amusing title attached to it. The term “Con Air”, a play on the name of the Conair Corporation, a company that has been selling appliances and personal care products since the 1950s, was there in the article. While they were searching for a writer who could flesh the idea out into a screenplay, a crime thriller spec script called Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead caught their attention. They didn’t want to make that movie, it ended up at Miramax, but they did feel that writer Scott Rosenberg was a good match for their prison plane project.
Rosenberg was listening to a lot of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Allman Brothers tunes when he figured out how to turn that L.A. Times article into an interesting, entertaining action story. The lead character would be a convict who is trying to get back to sweet home Alabama to see his wife and the daughter he has never met, as she was born soon after he was locked up. This would allow the story to have heart and emotion at its center, keeping the audience invested in the hero’s journey even while everything around him is completely insane. He also had to make sure the hero, whose name is Cameron Poe, wasn’t convicted of a crime the audience wouldn’t be able to forgive. Poe was jailed for manslaughter after killing a man in a bar fight. We’re shown this fight, we see that the guy who got killed was a jerk, we know Poe was provoked into fighting because the guy insulted him and made moves on his wife. The average viewer probably even wants to see Poe throw him a beating. He just hits too hard.
So we understand where Poe’s coming from and want to see him get a happy reunion with his wife and child. He serves his time in California’s San Quentin State Prison, and when he’s released he’s loaded onto a prisoner transport plane that will fly him back to Alabama. Giving a nod to history, Rosenberg set the events of the story on July 14th – which is Bastille Day, the date of the prison break that was an important step in the French Revolution. As Poe catches his plane, we find out that this isn’t just any con air flight. A new super-max prison has been built in Alabama, a place designed to hold the worst of the worst, and it needs to be populated. Poe is joined on his flight home by murderers and rapists who are either serving life sentences or sitting on Death Row. And the plane has barely gotten off the ground when it’s revealed that several of these prisoners have worked together to figure out a plan to hijack the plane and fly themselves to freedom. They just have to make two stops along the way: they’re going to land in Carson City, Nevada to pick up more prisoners and drop off a few, then meet up with associates at an abandoned airfield in the desert. Poe could get off the plane at either point and let the authorities deal with this situation… but he feels like he needs to stick around to protect a couple of the passengers. One is his friend Baby-O, who spends most of the movie on the edge of death because he needs an insulin shot that Poe has to obtain for him, then returns to the edge of death when he gets shot in the stomach. The other is a female guard who gets taken hostage by the prisoners and is in danger of being assaulted by a rapist. To keep Baby-O and the guard safe, Poe stays with the plane and plays the hero.
Touchstone specifically told Rosenberg they didn’t want Con Air to be “Die Hard on a plane”, but the comparisons are inevitable. A group of criminals, headed up by a somewhat charismatic lead villain, take control of a location. Or vehicle, in this case. One man, greatly outnumbered and wearing a tank top, has to stop them. While he’s figuring out how to take down the bad guys, there are men on the outside who have differing opinions on how to handle the situation. You have the hot-headed idiot whose suggestions are always the worst and put the hero in more danger, and you have the ally on the outside who understands what the hero is doing. There’s even a point where Poe sends his ally a message by dropping a body onto a car from a great height. Much like John McClane getting Al Powell’s attention by dropping a body onto his car in Die Hard. So Con Air is Die Hard on a plane, and that’s fine.
During the scripting process, Rosenberg spent three days riding on Con Air flights and observing how it all worked. The guards insisted there was no way prisoners could really hijack a Con Air flight, so they told the writer to let his imagination run wild. He did, and put together a script that soon found its way into the hands of highly successful action producer Jerry Bruckheimer. At the time, Bruckheimer had a producing partner, Don Simpson, with whom he had made movies like Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, and Bad Boys. While Bruckheimer was interested in the Con Air concept, Simpson was not into it at all. But The Rock was going to be Bruckheimer and Simpson’s last movie together, so Bruckheimer was free to take the Con Air script and run with it on his own. It became the first movie he made after the dissolution of his partnership with Simpson. Sadly, Simpson died soon after he and Bruckheimer decided to part ways.
Having just had success giving commercial and music video director Michael Bay the chance to make his first features – Bad Boys and The Rock – the producer decided to try to replicate that success by giving another commercial and music video director the chance to make Con Air their first feature. The director he chose for this one was Simon West, whose greatest previous work was the video for Rick Astley’s 1987 hit “Never Gonna Give You Up”. Yes, West is partially responsible for the Rickroll phenomenon. Pretty much every action star you can think of was considered for the role of Cameron Poe at one point or another, but Bruckheimer decided to cast the actor he was working with on The Rock: Nicolas Cage. Bruckheimer and West had their first meeting with Cage to discuss Con Air immediately after The Rock had finished filming – and on the same night Cage won a Screen Actors Guild award for his performance in Leaving Las Vegas. A performance he would soon win an Oscar for as well.
When working on The Rock, Cage had made suggestions that turned his character into less of an action-ready hero than he was in the script. The suggestions he brought to Con Air took Cameron Poe in the opposite direction. He felt the character should be a hero before we ever meet him; he’s a decorated, honorably discharged Army Ranger. The combat veteran has just left the military and is still wearing his uniform when he meets his wife at the bar where the life-changing fight will take place. It could have been argued that Poe killed the antagonist in self-defense, but due to his military skills the judge considers him to be a deadly weapon and throws the book at him for accidentally killing the guy. That’s why he’s locked up for seven to ten years. The rabbit plushie that Poe is bringing to give the daughter he’s never met before, that was also added at Cage’s suggestion. And West and Cage worked together to craft the montage sequence that shows the time passing as Poe serves his prison sentence. He spends his days working out, exchanging letters with his wife and daughter, and growing a magnificent mullet.
The fact that Poe is a former Army Ranger helps make it more believable that the character is so dedicated to staying on the plane, protecting people, and bringing the villains to justice. If he was just a regular guy, some viewers may find it difficult to side with him as he repeatedly risks his life when he’s supposed to be going home to see his daughter for the first time. But with the Army Ranger addition to the character comes an opening narration where it’s said that Rangers never leave a fallen comrade behind, no matter what the odds or the enemy. Now Poe’s actions make even more sense.
With the star attached and bringing good ideas to the table, West proceeded to surround him with a mind-blowing supporting cast. The criminals on the plane with Poe are played by the likes of Ving Rhames, Steve Buscemi, Dave Chappelle, Nick Chinlund, M.C. Gainey, Jesse Borrego, Renoly, and Danny Trejo. Mykelti Williamson, fresh off playing Bubba in Forrest Gump, was cast as Poe’s beleaguered buddy Baby-O. Rachel Ticotin plays Guard Sally Bishop, with Monica Potter and Landry Allbright as Poe’s wife and daughter. Colm Meaney is Duncan Malloy, the annoying DEA agent who won’t listen to reason, while John Cusack entered the action world to play U.S. Marshal Vince Larkin, Poe’s ally on the ground. Cusack took the role because it offered good pay and was a chance for him to get his name above the title and his face on a billboard. Something he might be able to use to help get lower budgeted passion projects off the ground. But he didn’t completely sell out: he made sure his character was wearing sandals. He wanted footwear that wasn’t appropriate for an action movie.
The plane the characters ride in, the Jailbird, is a character in its own right. Rather than use a regular commercial jet like the real Con Air flights do, the filmmakers chose an old C-123K military transport plane to play the Jailbird. Simply because it was more visually interesting. Unfortunately, there are two real-life tragedies associated with the plane. Phillip Swartz, a welder working for a special effects company, was killed during production when a model of the plane fell on him. The movie is dedicated to him. After filming was finished, the plane used for flight scenes was sold to a freight-hauling company in Alaska. It crashed in 2010, killing the three crew members on board.
The most difficult role to cast in Con Air was the lead villain, Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom, who is described as being the poster child for the criminally insane. Online trivia pages name two dozen actors who were either considered for or auditioned for the role, including Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Alec Baldwin, George Clooney, Willem Dafoe, and Robert De Niro. Jason Isaacs auditioned and was terrified when a camera assistant pulled out a real gun for him to hold while delivering his lines. Mickey Rourke allegedly brought a real knife to his audition. But the role ended up going to John Malkovich, who was cast just days before filming began. He was reportedly unhappy during production because the script was always being changed – not only by Rosenberg, but also by uncredited script doctors Jonathan Hensleigh and J.J. Abrams. Malkovich doesn’t think highly of the finished film, but he comes off well in it. He was a great choice for Cyrus.
REVIEW: West said he worked with the writers to turn Con Air into a more complex and emotional drama than it was before he got involved… but that’s not quite what the movie is. Rosenberg took delight in filling the script with crazy characters and the most absurd dialogue and set-pieces he could think of. Cusack has said that this project’s dark irony and sense of the absurd was appealing to him. West played up that element of the film, because he felt that the violence would be more palatable for the audience if it was evened out with a dash of humor. But there’s more than a dash of it in there. Con Air is really goofy, often playing like a comedy. It’s over-the-top, with ridiculous dialogue – but the kind where you can tell the people writing it knew it was ridiculous while they were typing it out. Increasing the humor quotient even more is Dave Chappelle, who spends his scenes tossing out a steady stream of ad-libs.
Con Air moves through its one hundred and fifteen minutes quickly, and manages to be exciting and suspenseful despite the fact that the logistics of the situation on the plane – which is wide open from front to back – causes our hero to be unusually passive for a long stretch of the film. There isn’t a whole lot Poe can do on board the Jailbird other than sit in his seat and watch what the other convicts are doing. In the first hour, the most he has accomplished is managing to alert the authorities. Twice. Thankfully, he gets more to do, and gets to show off his fighting skills, in the second half of the film. And when the action breaks out, Cage did a lot of his own stunts because the filmmakers wanted to see his face when he’s fighting and when explosions are going off around him.
Even while Poe is forced to sit and observe, there’s still a lot going on in the movie, with Larkin working to bring the situation to an end from the ground and getting caught up in the action himself. And when things aren’t blowing up and guns aren’t being fired, the movie continues to hold our attention because West assembled such an awesome cast. These actors are captivating no matter what they’re doing. It’s fun to watch them interact and bounce amusing lines off each other.
One of the standout characters is serial killer Garland Greene, played by Buscemi. As crazy things happen around him, he remains even more passive than Poe has to be. Nothing gets much of a reaction out of him, he just has wry observations to make about the other prisoners. He’s a terrible person, he killed thirty people and drove across three states while wearing a girl’s head as a hat… but we didn’t see him do those things, so somehow he’s oddly likeable. And due to the inclusion of Garland Greene, we get a scene in a big summer blockbuster that was inspired by the original FRANKENSTEIN. While the others are blasting away at the authorities at the desert airfield, Garland has wandered off to have a tea party with a random little girl. Rosenberg has openly said that he stole this idea from the scene where Frankenstein’s Monster meets a little girl in the 1931 film. Thankfully, things turn out better for the little girl in Con Air than they did for the girl in Frankenstein. Leading to a moment where Garland sings “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” while bullets are flying around him.
There is more action in the finished film than Rosenberg intended there to be. As far as he was concerned, the climax should be the moment when the Jailbird comes crashing down to Earth. In his script, it smashed into the White House when it crashed. But Bruckheimer wasn’t into that being a location, and the White House has just been blown up in Independence Day. Seeing a plane smash into it wouldn’t be such an impressive sight after movie-goers had already seen aliens destroy the place. So he moved the crash site to Las Vegas – and lucked out, because the Sands Hotel was about to be demolished. Bruckheimer got the owners to delay the demolition so he could film the Jailbird crashing into the front of the building.
To the disappointment of Rosenberg, the action continues after the Jailbird has crash-landed. Forced to add one more set-piece, he came up with what he calls the worst part of the film. The climactic chase sequence in which Cyrus and a couple of his cohorts escape from the crash site in a fire truck and Poe and Larkin give chase on motorcycles. Now, we’ve used the words ridiculous and absurd to describe Con Air before this sequence, but this is where it truly goes off the rails. The fire truck chase is ludicrous, with a random broken-down armored truck dropped into the mix and Cyrus getting his comeuppance by falling into roadside machinery that appears to be operating entirely on its own. It is a letdown that such a good villain comes to such a laughable end. Rosenberg couldn’t remember how Cyrus was defeated in his initial script, but he said that whatever it was, it was better than what’s in the movie.
But not even a bad ending can bring down the entertainment value of Con Air. The film has been so much fun to watch that okay, sure, we’ll go along with Cyrus being taken out like a cartoon character.
LEGACY/NOW: Con Air reached theatres on June 6, 1997, one day shy of the one year anniversary of the release of The Rock. And like its predecessor it was incredibly successful, pulling in two hundred and twenty-four million at the global box office on a budget of seventy-five million. Three weeks later, another Nicolas Cage action vehicle – Face/Off – arrived in theatres and did even better than Con Air, ending up with almost two hundred and forty-six million. It truly was the summer of Nic Cage: Action Hero.
Con Air also made an impact on the radio airwaves, as the country song “How Do I Live”, performed by Trisha Yearwood and used as the love theme for Poe and his family, was a hit. The Yearwood version of the song was released the same day as a version that was recorded by LeAnn Rimes, which was also very successful. But it was the Yearwood version that won a Grammy, and due to its inclusion in Con Air, was also nominated in the Best Original Song category at the Academy Awards. But that was the year of Titanic, so of course it lost to Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”. Con Air was also nominated for Best Sound, and lost to Titanic in that category as well.
Con Air didn’t win an Oscar, but it did go home with a Razzie Award. While “How Do I Live” lost in the Worst Original Song category – that award went to the score for The Postman – the film won in the category of Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property. To win that prize, it beat out the likes of Batman & Robin, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, Turbulence, and Volcano. Well done, Con Air!
This isn’t a highly respected movie, it’s not one that you see listed as one of the best action movies ever made on a regular basis, but it made plenty of money and has a solid fan following. Throughout the years, there have been rumblings now and then that a sequel may be in the works. Soon after the release of the film, there was even a rumor that a follow-up would take place on a prison bus instead of a prison plane and would be called Convoy. That didn’t happen, and now twenty-five years have gone by without Cameron Poe going on any further adventures, despite Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, and Simon West all saying that it could be interesting to revisit the concept and characters. Speaking with Screen Daily, West even pitched an idea for a sequel that would be really insane. West said, “I would do (the sequel) if it was completely turned on its head. Con Air in space, for example. A studio version where they’re all robots or the convicts are reanimated as super-convicts, or where the good guys are bad guys and the bad guys are good guys. Something shocking. If it was clever writing it could work.”
That’s probably not the sort of sequel any Con Air fan has been waiting for, but it certainly would be a strange curiosity to witness. In the end, we’re probably better off without a Con Air sequel. Cameron Poe served his time, he beat the bad guys, and he made it home to his wife and daughter. Let’s allow him to live in peace while we keep looking back at the craziness he lived through in the summer of 1997.