Good idea lost in the noise

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

When you watch this movie in 2018 , you will feel confused why Baby-O did not die.

My post is not about Con Air per se but about the movie's beginning. For every honest, decent, honorable person who has studied martial arts for the respectable purpose of self-defense, Con Air presents a realistic scenario of how everything can go wrong for the law-abiding citizen who defends himself.For starters, the laws of this nation defining 'self defense' have long been established by lawyer politicians and judges who never studied self-defense and more, have never been in a self-defense situation. It's possible a few have served in the military but that doesn't mean they experienced combat. Therefore the laws defining what the law-abiding citizen can and cannot do have been written by politicians who harbored only a vague sense of what legal self-defense should be. They never took into account just how fast and chaotic any life-and-death self-defense situation can be and the victim is not always in the position to determine just what constitutes enough self-defense that a 'reasonable' person would be expected to commit. This term, 'reasonable' and 'reasonable of amount of force' comes up repeatedly in the laws defining self-defense and deliberately cultivates an element of subjective uncertainty that is left up to the jury and judge to decide. The victim is still considered to be a law-abiding citizen and therefore is subject to strict compliance with the subjective laws of self-defense while the criminal aggressor of course is free to use whatever means of violence he chooses. Also bear in mind that the politicians and judges who framed our nation's laws of self-defense; many, not all, greatly disdained violent responses to personal attack because to them it broke the laws of civilization, introduced the law of the jungle and regressed society to the Old West frontier. While you can't pass laws restricting the criminal's violent crime they could pass laws restricting the law-abiding citizen's ability to defend himself.The set-up in Con Air is pretty stereotypical. Decent man, former US Army ranger, Cameron Poe, celebrates his return home with his beautiful wife in a local bar. And there's the stereotype villain, an obnoxious, drunk, horny, local white lowlife, dressing, looking, and speaking the part. And he has two, silent, lowlife buddies with him to give him courage. Drunk white trash lowlife makes obnoxious, lewd comments to Poe and his wife. Poe and wife put down the idiot and do the right thing, leave the dive. Since the white trash drunk lowlife has two buddies with him, he feels invincible in deciding to thrash the impertinent, clean-shaven Army boy, and maybe get in some rape fun with his wife. Well, that's how it is with bullies, isn't it? They always need to have a couple of guys backing them up. Had the slob been alone, he may have thought twice about going out in the rain to confront Poe (Nicholas Cage). Now the laws of self-defense in almost every state declare that Poe and wife retreat from the scene but it doesn't look like they have much opportunity to do so. A guy by himself could try to duck and run but with a woman on his arm that's out of the question, unless he plans on leaving her behind. As might be expected, the lowlife takes a sucker punch swing at Poe, who, counterattacks with fast, well-placed military combatives hand strikes, one of which, the palm heel strike to the nose, kills the lowlife. His two buddies immediately desert the scene. At the trial comes the nightmare. You hear nothing from Poe's lawyer, who stands silently like a store mannequin ten feet away from Poe as if he had some communicable disease. You get the sense Poe's defense lawyer was worthless to a tee. Then comes the judge who immediately shows his left-wing liberal views on self-defense by declaring Poe the aggressor and the criminal, simply because he had military combatives training and, "...should have known better." Should have known better, what? How was Poe to know? Men have died from a single punch to the face/head from an untrained assailant and it's happened twice in southern California over the past five years. During a fracas at local baseball park in southern California, a normal, healthy 5'10" man took a punch in the face from another fan. The man collapsed and died two days later.Now the laws of self-defense being what they are, when you kill someone in self-defense, a lot has to go into consideration. Typically killing an assailant armed with a deadly weapon usually (hopefully) ends with no prison time provided there was no escape option for the victim. Most of the time these situations involved house break-ins with armed burglars. But out in the street, fist-to-fist, it gets murkier. Killing someone in what the judge considers a bar brawl is not self-defense in his mind. You might blame the defense lawyer for not being eloquent or persuasive enough with the judge and jury. When you kill someone in a fistfight often the law declares you guilty of negligent homicide, be it manslaughter or second degree homicide. So you are going to jail. But the jail term should not be as long as Poe received, ten years. The judge could have sentenced him to three years to seven years. With time off for good behavior, Poe could have been out of jail in as little as 18 months to 3 years. Poe would still be vulnerable to a wrongful death lawsuit from the dead man's relatives but that's another worst case scenario.As you contemplate self-defense, know from the experts that it is chaotic, unscripted and thousand things can go wrong. But in the split seconds that you have, you take the risk, especially as in Poe's case, he could have been badly injured, even killed by three men, with the possibility of his wife been sexually assaulted afterwards, which in this movie was a distinct possibility given the lust the drunk lowlife exhibited to Poe's wife.

There are great films that will stand the test of time and then there are great – FUN – films. 'Con Air' is the latter. It may never be committed to the world's film archive as an example of classic Hollywood storytelling, but it deserves its place the annals of nineties action movies. For, if you're looking for one great action film that summed up the decade, then it's 'The Rock' (or possibly 'Speed'). But if you're looking for two or three, then Con Air should definitely be in there.Where do I start? Oh, yes, the star of the show. And, when I say 'star' I don't mean Nicholas Cage, but the explosions! Everything (and very nearly everyone!) explodes around here. Years before Michael Bay bored us to death with those pretty explosions Con Air did it first (and better!). However, apart from the fireworks, it does boast a really impressive cast to blow things up. Yes, Nick Cage is at the forefront of the carnage and he plays what is actually a bit of a tongue in cheek role straight as they come. He's ably assisted by John Cusack and – perhaps more importantly – John Malkovich, as he's almost as important as the explosions. The fact is, he's possibly one of the greatest (and possibly under-rated) villains ever to grace the silver screen. He's absolutely fantastically bad, only slightly over the top, but never playing it so much that he becomes unbelievable or a cartoon of himself. Now, it's easy to give all the acting credit to Malkovich, but this 'rogues gallery' of an aeroplane is also packed full of colourful (and completely evil) other prisoners and a special mention to Steve Buscemi who isn't in it for as long as some might wish, but is also fun to watch as a – not particularly subtle – Hannibal Lecter clone.Anyway, the plot… our Nicholas Cage plays a U.S. ranger who returns from active duty to his pregnant wife, only to immediately he embroiled in a bar fight where he ends up killing his assailant. Now mercy is spared here and he ends up being sent to prison for years. Then, and all this is hardly a spoiler as it all happens in practically the first five minutes, when he does get released he only ends up on a prison plane flying across America that gets hijacked by the convicts. Some guys just don't get a break.I think the reason I find Con Air so watchable is because it's serious, but not dark – if that makes sense. It kind of knows that it's being a bit overblown and has some nice moments of humour thrown in there, but it's part of that generation of action film that came because 'uber-serious' action films were forced upon us ('Bourne' franchise and Daniel Craig's Bond – I'm looking at you).I find it hard to believe that there are people out there who won't find some enjoyment from this film. Even if you're not a massive fan of any of the stars or action movies in general, this is just such a daft, silly ride then surely you can't help yourself from climbing aboard the plane and going along for a – very explosive – ride.

Con Air came out (1997) I gave it 8/10 it's a 1hr 55min | Action, Crime, Thriller from producer Jerry brucheimer and director Simon west brings an all star cast fasten your seat belts as Oscar winner nick cage takes you the most dangerous flight of your life in the smash hit high octane action thriller con air on an air craft carrying some of the most notorious criminals of all time the recently paroled Cameroon Poe (cage) is hitching a ride home to his wife and never seen and often wrote to daughter Casey but he suddenly finds himself embroiled in a mid air skyjacking masterminded by Cyrus the virus grissom(john malcovich) while grissom fight to keep the savage convicts from massacring ever one on board as they career towards the famed las Vegas strip a government agent on the ground (johncusack )battles to keep his overzealous superiors from blowing up the plane in to oblivion amazing stunts and visual effects add heart pounding suspense to this riveting action adventure along with a ground soundtrack of emotion with Leanne rimes how do i live to the emotional ending this is cage second las Vegas film. what a cast Nick cage Cameron Poe Colm Meaney Duncan Malloy, Mykelti Williamson Baby-O, Nick Chinlund Billy Bedlam, Renoly Santiago Ramon 'Sally-Can't Dance' Martinez (as Renoly), John Malkovich Cyrus 'The Virus' Grissom, Ving Rhames Diamond DogDave Chappelle Pinball, Rachel Ticotin Guard Sally Bishop, Steve Eastin Guard Falzon, Steve Buscemi Garland 'The Marietta Mangler' Greene, Danny Trejo Johnny-23 M.C. Gainey Swamp Thing, Landry Allbright Casey Poe, John Cusack Vince Larkin Monica Potter Tricia Poe Cameron Poe, a highly decorated United States Army Ranger, came home to Alabama to his wife, Tricia, only to run into a few drunken regulars where Tricia works. Cameron unknowingly kills one of the drunks and is sent to a federal penitentiary for involuntary manslaughter for seven years. Cameron becomes eligible for parole and can now go home to his wife and daughter and car flying outside of the plane as Poe says on any other day that wouldn't seam normal but this isn't any other day Macho's in a non-stop action movie with lot's of explosions. This is ladies and gentlemen; the ultimate guy movie. it made 100 mill at the box office The movie is filled with crazy over the top characters such as Pinball, Johnny-23, The Marietta Mangler and Sally-can't-dance. It has some of the best casting in a movie I have ever seen. The actors are all simply perfect for their roles. Especially John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi are excellent as always and their characters are the best of the movie even though Buscemi's character wasn't really needed at all. The introduction of the prisoners at the beginning of the movie is completely over the top but I love it! It possibly is one of my favorite scene's in cinema history when we first meet Cyrus the Virus and Diamond Dog, the music really sets the mood in that scene.Of course the story is not important, it's all about explosions, shootings, fist fights and everything in between. But dislike other action movies "Con Air" actually has a story that I like, even though it's completely over the top. Although I think that the movie might had been better of without the Poe's family scene's and story line, even though I still sort of like the emotional scene's between them. Also I think that Nicholas Cage is a bit too much of a good guy in the movie, not only does he help his friend on board, he even finds time to try and save all the cops their lives and that of the bunny present for his daughter.A good thing is the excellent soundtrack by Trevor Rabin and Mark Mancina that gives the movie an extra 'cool' feeling.One little point of critic is that the editing isn't always great. But I can live with that...Perfect entertainment in a crazy over the top non-stop action movie! There are better action movies out there but not much. nominated for 2 Oscars