Con Air

They were deadly on the ground. Now they have wings.

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6.8

Overview

Newly-paroled former US Army ranger Cameron Poe is headed back to his wife, but must fly home aboard a prison transport flight dubbed "Jailbird" taking the “worst of the worst” prisoners, a group described as “pure predators”, to a new super-prison. Poe faces impossible odds when the transport plane is skyjacked mid-flight by the most vicious criminals in the country led by the mastermind — genius serial killer Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom, and backed by black militant Diamond Dog and psychopath Billy Bedlam.

Release Date

June 5, 1997

Budget/Revenue

They had $75,000,000 on making this film, and they earned $224,000,000 in total. That means they made profit around $149,000,000.

Reviews

10

Horseface

February 9, 2025

Silly perfection! Having just watched this again after twenty-odd years, as it's now available in 4k. My god, Hollywood was great back in the day. This movie is stupid, silly, over-the-top everything, and wholly implausible. But it doesn't matter. It's 100% honest wholesome fun, like an action comic for boys in men's bodies. It's got everything, and everything's like a love letter. I want Criterion to add this to their collection and have some of their film historians create commentary tracks for it. This movie is now in my top ten, and I'll watch at least ten times more. 10/10

6

CinemaSerf

August 27, 2023

This takes forever to get going, but once the plot gets the establishing twenty minutes out of the way, it's actually quite a decent adventure story. Ranger Nicolas Cage ("Poe") gets embroiled in a fatal brawl that lands him in jail. Out on his parole, he gets caught up in a highly sophisticated prison break planned by "Cyrus" (John Malkovich) - intent on hijacking their prison flight and executing a complicated onwards escape plan before the pursuing Colm Meaney ("Agent. Malloy") and an heavily armed squad of soldiers track them down. Luckily for Cage, and the authorities, John Cusack ("Agent Larkin") is on hand to help guide in the Feds as time marches on, and Cage's predicament becomes even more precarious. Malkovich makes for quite a good scheming baddie; there is plenty of action, a little bit of humour, pyrotechnics and the last half hour consists of pretty decent, entertaining, end-to-end stuff. Nothing remotely cerebral, but it's still an enjoyable film that finds a use for a snow plough in the desert! Soundtrack is quite good, too.

8

Andre Gonzales

May 8, 2023

Great movie. One of my favorites growing up. Action packed with a great storyline. Great cast too.