Nic Cage Appreciation Month: Con Air (1997)

Con Air was nominated for two Oscars in 1998, and though it didn't win either of them, it did win a Razzie for Worst Reckless Disregard for Human Life and Public Property. That sums this film up better than I ever could, really. And any film that starts with Nic Cage stalking around in a military uniform with How Do I Live playing in the background can't be anything less than awesome.

Cage plays Cameron Poe, a US Ranger who accidentally murders a man who was harrassing his wife and ends up doing 7-10 years for his trouble. On the day he's due to be released, he, for some ridiculous reason, ends up hitching a ride on a private plane which is being used to transport highly dangerous prisoners from one prison to another. Finding himself in close quarters with every famous serial killer and rapist in the country is pretty unpleasant, but it's about to get worse, because some of those prisoners have hatched a plot to hijack the plane and fly to freedom. The exact details of this plan are kind of sketchy, and it doesn't really make sense, but when you're packing as many explosives as this movie is, who needs a well-thought out plot anyway?

It's difficult to pick the best Nic Cage moment in Con Air - the number of times he ends up running in slow motion away from an explosion, his long hair streaming behind him in the breeze, is incalculable - but the line that's destined to be most quoted is certainly "Put the bunny back in the box."

Brilliant.

IMDB link

2 comments:

Oli said...

Lets not forget the bit where he runs through a bullet...

Oliver said...

It was nominated for two Oscars?!? Wow... just wow.

And when you say his "long hair streaming behind him", surely you mean his "ratty long wig flowing behind him"? ;-P